As soon as it was fairly light I saddled my horse, and John and I took up the spoor, which led us down to the little river Simbo, a small stream, about three hundred yards from my waggon, which runs into the Umfuli River, just below Hartley Hills. For about a mile beyond the Simbo we were able to follow without difficulty the tracks of what was evidently a large male lion, as the ground was low-lying and soft from the recent heavy rains; but after this the spoor got into soil of a different nature, thickly covered with short grass, where the footprints left but little trace. Suffice it to say that we followed the tracks for over three hours, and finally lost them in stony ground, and could not manage to pick them up again. For another hour I rode about examining all the patches of bush in the neighbourhood, as I felt sure the lion was somewhere near at hand, waiting for night, to return to the carcase of the ox he had killed. However, as I could not discover his whereabouts or find any further trace of him, I was obliged to give up the pursuit and returned to camp, resolved to sit up and watch the carcase that night. On again reaching the settlement, Mr. Somerville, who was in charge of Mr. Johnson’s compound, informed me that the lion had walked past his cattle kraal, in which there were a few goats, sheep, and calves, and had killed one of the goats by putting his paw between the poles of which the enclosure was made. Seizing the animal by the throat, which he had torn open, the lion had severed the jugular vein, so that the beast bled to death. This had evidently been done before my ox was killed, and apparently out of sheer exuberance of spirits, as no attempt had been made to pull the carcase out of the kraal by forcing two of the poles forming the palisade apart from one another.