I Next Commenced To Skin My Trophy And Found
It A Very Tough Job To Perform By Myself.
He
proved to be a very fat beast, so I knew that
Mahina would make a few honest and well-earned
rupees out of him, for Indians will give
almost anything for lion fat, believing that it is
an infallible cure for rheumatism and various
other diseases.
When at length the skinning
process was completed, I waited impatiently
for the return of Mahina, who had by this time
been gone much longer than I expected. It is
rather a nerve shattering thing - I am speaking
for myself - to remain absolutely alone for hours
on a vast open plain beside the carcase of a
dead lion, with vultures incessantly wheeling
about above one, and with nothing to be seen or
heard for miles around except wild animals. It
was a great relief, therefore, when after a long
wait I saw Mahina approaching with half-a-dozen
practically naked natives in his train. It turned
out that he had lost his way back to me, so that
it was lucky he found me at all. We lost no time
in getting back to camp, arriving there just at
sundown, when my first business was to rub
wood ashes into the skin and then stretch it on
a portable frame which I had made a few days
previously. The camp fire was a big one that
night, and the graphic and highly coloured
description which Mahina gave to the eager circle
of listeners of the way in which we slew the
lion would have made even "Bahram, that great
Hunter," anxious for his fame.
CHAPTER XIX
THE STRICKEN CARAVAN
Not long after this adventure the permanent
way reached the boundary of the Kapiti Plains,
where a station had to be built and where
accordingly we took up our headquarters for a
week or two. A few days after we had settled
down in our new camp, a great caravan of some
four thousand men arrived from the interior
with luggage and loads of food for a Sikh regiment
which was on its way down to the coast, after
having been engaged in suppressing the mutiny
of the Sudanese in Uganda. The majority of
these porters were Basoga, but there were also
fair numbers of Baganda (i.e. people of Uganda)
and of the natives of Unyoro, and various
other tribes. Of course none of these wild men of
Central Africa had either seen or heard of a
railway in all their lives, and they consequently
displayed the liveliest curiosity in regard to it,
crowding round one of the engines which happened
to be standing at the station, and hazarding
the wildest guesses as to its origin and use in
a babel of curious native languages. I thought
I would provide a little entertainment for them,
so I stepped on to the footplate and blew off the
steam, at the same time sounding the whistle.
The effect was simply magical.
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