Those were never-to-be-forgotten evenings, spent on that lonely veldt all bathed in silver light.

We also had excitements--much lions' spoor on the roads by day, many scares of lions round the camps by night, when the danger is that the horses may be taken while the camp is asleep.

Every evening our animals were put into a "skerm," or high palisade, constructed of branches by the ubiquitous carriers with marvellous rapidity.
One dark night before the moon had risen, just as we had finished dinner and were sitting round the fire listening to thrilling stories of sport and adventure, a terrific noise suddenly disturbed our peaceful circle--a noise which proceeded from a dark mass of thick bush not 200 yards away, and recalled one's childish recollections of "feeding-time" at the Zoo.

Not one, but five or six lions, might have been thus near to us from the volume of growls and snarls, varied by short deep grunts, which broke the intense stillness of the night in this weird fashion.
Each man rushed for his rifle, but it was too dark to shoot, and gradually the noise died away.

The natives opined it was a slight difference of opinion between some wolves and a lion, which animals, curiously enough, very often hunt in company, the lion doing the killing, and the wolf prowling along behind and picking up the scraps.
It was but an incident, but it served as an uncanny reminder of the many eyes of the animal world, which, though unseen, are often watching travellers in these solitudes.