and
when it opened its mouth to bite him he thrust the sharp stick inside,
up and down, thus gagging the lion. Then with his two hands he held
the lion by its ears for three days. He couldn't let go because the
lion would maul him with its heavy paws. He was thus in quite a fix.

[Drawing: _He Hastily Cut a Stick_]

"Finally another Somali came along and he asked the new-comer to hold
the lion while he killed it with his spear. The other Somali consented
and seized the lion by the ears. Then the first Somali laughed long
and loud and said, 'I've held him three days, now you hold him three
days.' Then he strolled down the road and disappeared. For seven days
the second Somali held the lion and then by the same subterfuge turned
it over to a third Somali. By this time the lion was pretty tired, so
after one day the Somali shook the lion hard and then took out his
knife and stabbed it to death."

* * * * *

Sulimani was my second gunbearer. His name wasn't Sulimani, but some one
gave him that name because his own Kikuyu name was too hard to pronounce
and impossible to remember. Sulimani was quite a study. He had the
savage's love of snuff, and when not eating or sleeping he was taking
pinches of that narcotic from an old kodak tin. In consequence he had
the chronic appearance of being full of dope. He walked along as though
in a trance. He never seemed to be looking anywhere except at the
stretch of trail directly in front of him. His thoughts were far away,
or else there were no thoughts at all. I often watched him and wondered
what he was thinking about.

Sulimani was really one of the best natural hunters in the whole
_safari_. He had a native instinct for tracking that was wonderful; he
had courage that was fatalistic, and he seemed to know what an animal
would do and where it would go under certain conditions. Beneath that
dopy somnolence of manner his senses were alert and his eyes were
usually the first to see distant game.

He had originally been a porter when we started out, but I gave him a
new suit of khaki and promoted him to the position of second gunbearer.
As long as we were in touch with civilization he kept that khaki suit in
a condition of spotlessness, but when we got out in the wilds, away from
the girls, it soon became stiff with blood-stains and dirt. The natural
savage instinct became predominant; he reverted to type.

His jaunty red f