NOTES ON THE LION
The lion--Native names for--Character of--Death of Ponto--Picture in
Gordon Cumming's book--Death of Hendrik--Number of natives killed
by lions--Usual mode of seizure--A trooper's adventure--Poisonous
nature of lion's bite--Story of the Tsavo man-eaters--Death of
Mr. Ryall--Story of the tragedy--Precautions by natives against
lions--Remains of a lion's victim found--Four women killed--Lion
killed--Carcase burned--Story of the Majili man-eater--Man-eating
lions usually old animals--Strength of lions--Large ox killed
by single lion--Buffaloes killed by lions--Ox slowly killed by
family of lions--Lions usually silent when attacking and killing
their prey--Camp approached by three lions--Various ways of
killing game--Favourite food of lions--Giraffes rarely killed
by lions--Evidence as to lions attacking elephants--Michael
Engelbreght's story--Mr. Arnot's letter describing the killing of
an elephant cow by six lions.
Of all the multifarious forms of life with which the great African
Continent has been so bountifully stocked, none, not even excepting
the "half-reasoning elephant" or the "armed rhinoceros," has been
responsible for such a wealth of anecdote and story, or has stirred the
heart and imagination of mankind to such a degree, as the lion--the
great and terrible meat-eating cat, the monarch of the African
wilderness, by night at least, whose life means constant death to all
his fellow-brutes, from the ponderous buffalo to the light-footed
gazelle, and fear, and often destruction too, to the human inhabitants
of the countries through which he roams.
How often has not the single word "Simba," "Tauw," "Shumba," "Silouān,"
or any other native African synonym for the lion, sent the blood
tingling through the veins of a European traveller or hunter; or when
whispered or screamed in the darkness of the night in a native village
or encampment, brought terror to the hearts of dark-skinned men and
women!
When met in the light of day, a lion may be bold and aggressive,
retiring, or even cowardly, according to its individual character and
the circumstances under which it is encountered; but no one, I think,
who has had anything like a long experience of the nature and habits of
these great carnivora can doubt that by night, particularly on a dark
rainy night, a hungry lion is a terrible and terrifying beast to deal
with.
One day towards the end of the year 1878, my friend Mr. Alfred Cross
left our main camp on the Umfuli river in Mashunaland, and taking an
empty waggon with him, went off to buy corn at some native villages
about twenty miles distant. That same afternoon he outspanned early
near a small stream running into the Umfuli, as a heavy thunderstorm
was threatening. A kraal was made for the oxen, behind which the Kafir
boys arranged a shelter for themselves of boughs and dry grass as a
protection from the anticipated downpour of rain. They also collected
a lot of dry wood in order to be able to keep up a good fire. The
waggon-driver, a native of the Cape Colony, made his bed under the
waggon, to the front wheel of which Mr. Cross's horse was fastened.
As one of the hind oxen kept breaking out of the kraal, it was tied
up by itself to the hind yoke close in front of the waggon. The trek
chain, with the other yokes attached to it, was then stretched straight
out along the ground in front of the waggon. Soon after dark the
thunderstorm, which had been gathering all the afternoon, burst forth
with terrific violence. The rain fell in sheets, soon extinguishing the
fires that had been lighted by the Kafirs, and the blinding flashes
of lightning which continually lit up both heaven and earth with
blue-white light were quickly succeeded by crashing peals of thunder.
The storm had lasted some time and the rain had almost ceased, when the
ox which was tied up all alone to the after yoke of the waggon began to
jump backwards and forwards over the disselboom--the waggon pole.
Cross, who was then lying down inside the waggon, raised himself to a
sitting position, and whilst calling to the ox to quiet it, crawled
forward, and raising the fore sheet, looked out. Just then a vivid
flash of lightning lit up the inky blackness of the night just for
one brief moment. But the brilliant light revealed to my friend every
detail of the surrounding landscape, and showed him with startling
distinctness the form of a big male lion lying flat on the ground
not ten yards in front of the frightened ox, which it would probably
already have seized, had it not been for Cross's loud shouting. The
lion had been no doubt creeping silently towards its would-be prey,
which had already become aware of its proximity, when my friend's
voice caused it to halt and lie flat on the ground watching. By this
time Cross's dog, a well-bred pointer, which had been lying on the
driver's blankets under the waggon, had become aware that something was
wrong--though the lion was no doubt making its approach against the
wind--and was standing just behind the ox, growling.
Directly the position of the lion was revealed to him by the lightning,
Cross seized his rifle, and calling to the waggon-driver to jump up
and hold his horse, took aim in the direction of the crouching brute,
waiting for another flash of lightning. This was not long delayed, and
showed the lion still lying flat on the ground close in front of the
waggon. Cross fired at once. Encouraged by the report of the rifle,
poor Ponto rushed boldly forward, past the terrified ox, into the black
night, barking loudly. A yelp of fright or pain suddenly succeeded
the bold barking of the dog, and poor Ponto's voice was stilled for
ever. He had rushed right into the lion's jaws, and had been instantly
killed and carried off. Fires were then made up again, but the lion,
apparently satisfied with a somewhat light repast, did not give any
further trouble. On the following morning Cross could find no part of
Ponto but the head. All the rest of him had apparently been eaten.
I remember even to-day, and with perfect distinctness, though I have
not seen it for many years, a certain picture in Gordon Cumming's
well-known book on African hunting, and the fearful fascination it
always had for me when I was a small boy. That picture represented a
great gaunt lion in the act of seizing one of the hunter's Hottentot
servants--poor Hendrik--as he lay asleep by the camp fire; but it
left to the imagination all the horror and agony of mind suffered by
the poor wretch, when so rudely awakened at dead of night and swiftly
dragged away into the darkness to a cruel death, in spite of the
gallant attempts of his comrades to save him.
During the sixty odd years that have elapsed since this tragedy was
enacted on the banks of the Limpopo, many a similar incident has taken
place. Some of these occurrences have come within the knowledge of,
and been described by, European travellers and hunters, yet these have
been but isolated cases, and can only represent a very small percentage
of the number of natives that have been dragged away from their camp
fires, or even killed in their huts, by hungry lions within recent
times.
As a rule, I think, a lion seizes a sleeping man by the head, and in
that case, unless it is a very old and weakly animal, death must be
usually instantaneous, as its great fang teeth will be driven into the
brain through the thickest negro skull.
I have known of two instances of men having been seized at night by the
shoulder. This, I think, is likely to happen to a sleeping man lying
on his side with one shoulder raised, especially if his recumbent form
should happen to be covered with a blanket, in which case the most
prominent part of him would very likely be mistaken by a lion for his
head.
In the early 'nineties of the last century, two troopers of the
British South Africa Company's Police started one afternoon from
the neighbourhood of Lo Magondi's kraal to ride into Salisbury, the
capital of Mashunaland, a distance of about seventy miles. They rode
until dark, and then off-saddling their horses, tied them to a tree,
and after having had something to eat and cooked a pot of tea, lay
down by the side of the camp fire they had kindled, intending to sleep
until the moon rose and then continue their journey by its light.
About midnight, however, and when it was very dark, for the moon had
not yet risen, a prowling lion came up to their lonely bivouac, and,
disregarding their horses, seized one of them by the shoulder and at
once dragged him away into the darkness. His companion, awakened by his
cries, quickly realised what had happened, and snatching up his rifle,
ran to his friend's assistance and fired two or three shots into the
air in quick succession. This so startled the lion that it dropped its
prospective supper and made off. The wounded man, it was found, had
received a severe bite in the shoulder when the lion first seized him,
but fortunately had not suffered any further injuries, and was able to
proceed with his friend to Salisbury as soon as the moon had risen.
He had to be sent to the Hospital on his arrival there, as, although
his hurts were not very serious, any wound indicted by the teeth of a
lion is, as a rule, very difficult to heal unless carefully attended
to at once and cauterised with a strong lotion of carbolic acid. Dr.
Livingstone has described how he suffered for years from the bite of
a lion; and I have myself seen wounds from the teeth of one of these
animals in a horse's neck, which had never been properly attended
to, still suppurating thirteen months after they had been inflicted;
whilst, on the other hand, I have seen wounds from the bite of a lion,
which were cauterised at once, heal up very quickly and never reopen.
Of all the lion stories that I have ever heard or read, I think none
equals in dramatic interest the thrilling narrative of Mr. J. H.
Patterson's[4] experiences with two man-eaters during the construction
of the Uganda Railway in 1898. This very remarkable story, a brief
account of which I first read some years ago with the most absorbing
interest in the _Field_ newspaper, has now, I am glad to say, been
incorporated in the record of his experiences in East Africa which
Colonel Patterson has recently published under the title of _The
Man-Eaters of Tsavo_. Mr. Patterson (as he then was) at last succeeded
in ridding the country of both of these dread beasts, but not before
they had killed and eaten twenty-eight Indian coolies employed upon the
construction of the Uganda Railway, and caused such a panic through
the country-side, that at one time it looked as if the building of the
railway would have to be abandoned altogether for the time being.
[4] This gentleman greatly distinguished himself in the late South
African War, and is now Lieut. Col. Patterson, D.S.O.
The death of Mr. C. H. Ryall, the Assistant Superintendent of the
East African Police Force, who was killed by a man-eating lion inside
a railway carriage on the Uganda Railway, is also a most interesting
episode, as it shows how extraordinarily bold a hungry lion may become,
when in search of prey during the hours of darkness.
When in East Africa a few years ago, I met both the other two Europeans
(Mr. Huebner, a German, and Mr. Parenti, an Italian) who were in the
carriage with Mr. Ryall when he was killed, and I heard the story of
the tragedy from their lips.
The railway carriage in question, which contained a small saloon and
an adjoining servants' compartment, had been pulled on to a siding,
close to a small station on the Uganda Railway, in order to give its
occupants the chance of getting a shot at a man-eating lion which had
lately been giving trouble in the neighbourhood--either as it came
prowling about during the night or by hunting it up the next morning.
There was a small window on each side of the little saloon, and a
sliding door at the end of the carriage. Both the windows and the door
were wide open. Mr. Ryall took the first watch, and seems to have taken
up a position on one of the seats of the carriage, with his back to the
open window. His head and shoulders would therefore probably have been
visible to the eyes of a nocturnal animal from outside.
Mr. Huebner turned in and went to sleep on one of the top berths in the
carriage, and Mr. Parenti made his bed on the floor. It is probable, I
think, that Mr. Ryall also went to sleep after a time. What happened
afterwards I will now relate as it was told to me by Mr. Parenti. "I
was awakened from a sound sleep by the sensation of a weight holding
me down on the floor, and for a moment was unable to move. Then the
weight was taken off me, and I raised my head with a jerk. My face
immediately came in contact with a soft hairy body, and I became
conscious of a disagreeable smell. In an instant I realised that there
was a lion in the railway carriage, and that at that moment it was
killing poor Mr. Ryall, as I heard a sort of gurgling noise, the only
sound he ever made."
Mr. Huebner seems to have awakened at the same time, and to have at
once jumped down on to the floor of the carriage, where he and Mr.
Parenti and the lion were all mixed up together. At this time the
weight of the lion and the struggling men combined slightly tipped the
carriage to one side, causing the sliding door to close automatically,
and thus materially increasing the horror of the situation. Mr.
Parenti, as soon as he could collect his thoughts, made his escape
from the carriage through the open window opposite to the one against
which poor Mr. Ryall had been sitting when the lion seized him, and Mr.
Huebner burst open the door communicating with the smaller compartment
occupied by Mr. Ryall's two Indian servants, who, having become aware
that there was a lion in the other room with the "Sahibs," were holding
the door against the crowd with all their strength. Mr. Huebner,
however, who is a heavy, powerful man, soon overcame their resistance.
To do it justice, this lion does not seem to have had any wish to make
itself unnecessarily disagreeable. It wanted something to eat, but,
having got hold of Mr. Ryall, seems never to have paid the smallest
attention to any one else. In all probability, I think, it had seen
its victim's back and head from outside against the open window, and,
coming round to the open door, had entered the carriage and made
straight for him, treading on Mr. Parenti's sleeping form as it crossed
the floor. It seized Mr. Ryall by the throat just under the jaw, and
must have reared itself up, probably resting its fore-paws on the
seat of the carriage, to have done so. Mr. Ryall must have been killed
by the first bite almost instantaneously, as he never seems to have
struggled or made any noise but a low gurgling sound.
The windows of the carriages on the Uganda Railway are small, but after
having killed Mr. Ryall, this lion--a big male--succeeded in carrying
off his body through the comparatively small opening. It probably never
relaxed its hold on his throat until it had got his dead body safely
out of the carriage and pulled it away to some distance.
The half-eaten remains of the unfortunate man were recovered the next
day nearly a mile away from the railway carriage in which he had met
his death; but the lion was nowhere to be found, and in spite of a
large reward offered for its destruction, it was some time before this
bold and dangerous beast was disposed of. At last, however, it was
caught alive in a big cage-trap made by a Mr. Costello, who at that
time was the station-master at Makindu, on the Uganda Railway. After
having been photographed, this lion was shot. This photograph was shown
me by Mr. Costello himself, who told me that the captured animal was
old and mangy, with very worn teeth and claws, and a short, scrubby
mane. He thought that there could be no reasonable doubt that it was
the lion that had killed poor Mr. Ryall, but of course nobody can be
absolutely certain on this point.
Natives living in very small communities, in wild districts where game
being still abundant, lions also are consequently fairly numerous, are
often troubled at night by these animals. In such cases a man-eating
lion usually proves to be an old and almost worn-out beast, which
having grown too weak to catch and kill its usual prey, has been driven
by hunger to approach the haunts of men. Urged on by its desperate
need, such a lion knows no fear, and will not hesitate to enter a small
native village or even to force its way into a hut in search of food.
In 1879, whilst hunting elephants in the country to the east of the
Chobi or Quito river, I met with a very primitive tribe of natives
living in families or very small communities in isolated villages along
the bank of the river. Their huts were of the flimsiest description,
being formed of a light framework of poles, over which a few grass mats
had been stretched; but the two or three, up to half a dozen, ill-made
huts which formed each village were always surrounded and protected by
a carefully made stockade, the poles forming which were all sharpened
at the end and hardened by having been charred in the fire, and so
placed that they slanted outwards and would have been very difficult to
surmount from the outside. The natives informed me that they had taken
this trouble as a defence against lions.
[Illustration: "HE HAD EVIDENTLY BEEN SITTING OR LYING BY A FIRE WHEN
CAUGHT."]
One morning, in this same district, I came upon most of the skeleton
of a man who had been killed and eaten by a lion a few days before.
He had evidently been sitting or lying by a fire when caught, and had
probably been overtaken by darkness when on his way from one village to
another. This man's spears lay close to his bones, so that he must have
been holding them in his hand when he was seized. None of my Kafirs
would touch them. Apparently it was not etiquette to meddle with the
belongings of a dead man, though I think that most of the members of
my retinue would not have been above stealing anything they might have
found lying about, belonging to a live one.
In April 1878 a lion entered a small Banyai village near the river
Umay, in Northern Matabeleland, a short time after I had left it, and,
not being able to make its way into any of the huts through the small
doorways, all of which had been very carefully barricaded, climbed on
the roof of one of them, and tearing away the grass thatching, forced
its way in from the top. There were three or four women inside the
hut, and it killed them all; but, having gorged itself, was apparently
unable to make its escape through the roof again, and was speared to
death by the men of the village the next morning through the framework
of the hut, after the mud plaster had been removed in places.
A native servant of my own, whom I had left behind in this village,
was present when this lion was killed, and he told me that, as soon
as it was dead, a huge bonfire was built, on which the carcase of the
man-eater was thrown, and the fire kept up until it was quite consumed.
The most cunning and destructive man-eating lion--probably because it
was not an old and weakly animal, but in the prime of life--that I ever
heard of in South Africa was one which once haunted the neighbourhood
of the Majili river, a tributary of the central Zambesi from the north.
I gave some account of the doings of this bold and ferocious beast
in the course of an article which I contributed to the pages of the
_Fortnightly Review_ some twenty years ago, and as I have the kind
permission of the editor and proprietor of that publication to do so, I
will now retell the story as I originally heard it from one of my own
native servants shortly after the occurrences related took place.
In the early part of 1886 two half-caste elephant-hunters, Henry Wall
and Black Jantje--the latter for several years both before and after
this time a trusted servant of my own--crossed the Zambesi at its
junction with the Quito or Chobi, in order to hunt elephants in the
country to the north between the Majili and Ungwesi rivers.
They soon heard from the natives that there was a man-eating lion in
the district which had already killed several people, and they were
therefore careful to see that a strong fence was made every night
behind their camp, and sufficient dry wood collected to keep up good
fires during the hours of darkness. The two half-civilised hunters were
accustomed to sleep by themselves within a strong semicircular fence,
the open end of which was protected by a large fire. All but one of
their native boys--wild Batongas and Masubias--slept together, lying in
a row with a strong fence behind them and a succession of fires near
their feet. The boy who would not sleep with the others, always lay by
one or other of the fires by himself.
One night, Henry Wall, who was a very light sleeper, and had perhaps
been dreaming of lions, was awakened, as he afterwards declared, by
the sound of a low growl or purr close to him. Springing to his feet,
he shouted out, "De leeuw is hier!" ("The lion's here!"); "wake up,
Jantje!" But Jantje and all the Kafirs were fast asleep, and it was
not until they had been awakened and questioned that it was discovered
that the man who had been lying by one of the fires all alone was
gone. Where he had gone and why was not left long in doubt, for almost
immediately a lion was heard eating his remains close behind the
encampment. Henry Wall and Jantje at once fired in the direction of the
sound, on which the lion retired to a safer distance with its prey.
As soon as it was broad daylight, the hunters took up the spoor of the
lion, which was, they told me, quite easy to follow through the dewy
grass. It was not long before they saw it walking slowly along with its
head half-turned, holding the dead man by one shoulder, so that his
legs dragged at its side. As soon as it became aware that it was being
followed, it dropped its prey, and wheeling round, stood looking at its
pursuers, twitching its tail and growling angrily.
Henry Wall, who was a very good shot and a cool and courageous man, now
tried to fire, but the old, clumsy, muzzle-loading elephant gun he was
using only snapped the cap. At this juncture Jantje, who was a little
to one side, was unable to fire because there was a bush in his way,
and before Henry Wall could get another cap on the nipple of his gun,
the Kafir who carried his second weapon fired at and missed the lion,
which instantly turned and, running into a patch of bush, made good its
escape.
On examination, it was found that the dead man had been seized by the
head. He must have been killed instantaneously, as the two upper canine
teeth had been driven through the top of the skull, whilst one of the
lower ones had entered beneath the jaw and broken the bone. During the
night the corpse had been disembowelled and all the flesh eaten off the
thighs and buttocks.
A few days later, a native family was attacked not far from the scene
of the episode I have just recounted, and almost certainly by the same
lion.
All over Africa, wherever game is plentiful, it is customary for the
natives, at the season when their crops are ripening, to build huts
in their fields, in which they spend the night and endeavour to keep
buffaloes, elephants, and all kinds of antelopes out of their corn by
shouting and beating tom-toms. The huts are often built on the top of
platforms raised ten or twelve feet above the ground and reached by a
ladder. The native family in question occupied two huts--a large one
built on the ground and a small one on the top of a platform. The
large hut was occupied by a woman and her two children, whilst her
husband kept watch alone in the little open hut above.
One night the dread man-eater of the Majili came prowling round, and
scenting the native on the platform, either sprang up and seized him
with its teeth, or more probably, I think, half clambered up by the
help of the ladder, and dragged him from his shelter with its claws. At
any rate, it bore him to the ground and speedily killed him, but not
before he had made a good deal of noise, as reported afterwards by his
children. His wife, awakened by the cries of her husband, opened the
door of her hut and rushed out, leaving the two children inside. The
lion at once left the man, who was then dead, and seizing the woman,
quickly killed her. It never returned to the body of the man at all,
but ate all the fleshy parts of the woman, retiring into the bush
before daylight, and never revisiting the corpses.
All through the dry season this lion kept the natives in the
neighbourhood of the Majili river in a constant state of alarm, and
whilst adding steadily to the number of its victims, baffled every
attempt made to hunt it down and destroy it. After having been away
for some months, hunting elephants in the country farther north, Henry
Wall and Black Jantje once again camped on the Majili river on their
way back to the Zambesi, and for the second time the man-eater paid
them a visit. This time Jantje was awake, and hearing, as he told me,
a low purring growl, jumped up, calling out, "Daat's de leeuw wieder!"
("That's the lion again!").
At the same time one of the Kafirs stood up holding his hand to his
head.
"What's the matter with you?" asked Jantje, going up to him.
"I don't know," answered the man; "something hit me on the head."
At this moment Jantje saw by the light of the fire blood running down
his neck, and called out, "Wake, wake, it was the lion I heard! Wake,
wake, and see if every one is here!"
It soon appeared that one of the Kafirs was missing, and this is no
doubt what had happened. The lion must have crept or sprung in amongst
the sleepers, and seizing one of them by the head, must have killed
him instantly and carried him off. But in doing so it must have struck
the man lying next him on the head with one of its paws, and inflicted
a slight scalp wound with one of its claws. The body of the man who
had been carried off was not recovered, because, as Henry Wall and
Jantje told me, the rest of the Kafirs would give them no assistance in
following up the lion the next day.
This dangerous man-eater was at last mortally wounded by the spears
of two young men whom it attacked in broad daylight close to a small
native village. One of these youths died the same evening from the
mauling he received in the encounter, but he had driven his spear into
the lion's chest when it attacked him, and his companion had also
struck it in the side with a light throwing spear. The next day, all
the men from the two or three little villages in the neighbourhood
turned out and followed up the bloody tracks of the wounded lion. They
had not far to go, for the grim beast lay dead, with the two spears
still sticking in it, within a short distance from the spot where it
had attacked the two young men the previous day. As is the custom when
man-eating lions are killed in the interior of Africa, a great quantity
of dry wood was then collected, and a huge fire lighted, on which the
carcase was thrown and utterly consumed.
There is one rather curious fact in connection with the history of
this notorious man-eating lion which I omitted from the first account
I wrote of its doings, but which I will now relate, as it is of
interest. Soon after dark on the night of the second attack on their
camp, Henry Wall and Jantje and all their boys heard the sudden rush
of an affrighted herd of buffaloes, which had been feeding in the open
ground between their camp and the Majili river. Suddenly there was the
loud and agonised bellow of a buffalo in pain and terror, and they all
knew that one of these animals had been seized by a lion. The following
morning they found a buffalo cow lying dead not two hundred yards from
their camp, with its head twisted in under it and its neck dislocated.
It had the claw-marks usual in such cases over the muzzle and on the
shoulder, showing the manner in which it had been seized, but after
having been killed it had not been touched. The tracks of the lion,
however, led from the carcase of the buffalo to the hunters' camp, and
I think that there can be no doubt that it was the same animal which
killed the buffalo that a few hours later carried off a human being.
If so, it proves two things. Firstly, that this man-eating lion must
have been in its prime, for it requires a strong and vigorous male lion
to kill a full-grown buffalo cow or a heavy bullock neatly and quickly
by breaking its neck; and secondly, that it preferred human flesh to
that of a buffalo. It must either have seen the gleam of the camp fires
for the first time immediately after it had killed the buffalo, and
abandoned the carcase in the hope of obtaining more succulent food,
or, if it was aware of the neighbourhood of the hunters' camp before
it attacked the buffalo, it must have killed the latter out of sheer
mischief.
Though similar cases of lions becoming confirmed man-eaters when in
the prime of life and still in the enjoyment of their full strength
and vigour do from time to time occur--the celebrated Tsavo man-eaters
which played such havoc amongst the construction camps on the Uganda
Railway were reported to have been far from old--yet it cannot be
denied that in the vast majority of cases a lion only takes to killing
human beings in its declining years, and when its strength is failing.
On this subject, Dr. Livingstone wrote many years ago: "A man-eater is
invariably an old lion, and when he overcomes his fear of man so far
as to come to villages for goats, the people remark, 'His teeth are
worn, he will soon kill men.' They at once acknowledge the necessity of
instant action and turn out to kill him."
Speaking generally, nothing truer could have been written than these
sentences; but there are exceptions to every rule, and when a strong
and vigorous lion does take to preying upon human beings, it is
naturally not so easy to hunt down and destroy as would be an old and
weakly beast, whose "teeth are worn."
An adult male lion is probably possessed of greater strength in
proportion to its size and weight than any other African animal. It
will kill with astonishing ease and dexterity a full-grown buffalo cow
or the heaviest bullock, and probably sometimes a buffalo bull or a
giraffe. I never remember, however, to have seen the carcase of an old
buffalo bull that had palpably been killed by a single lion, whilst
I have shot several buffalo bulls that had escaped from lions after
receiving very severe wounds from their teeth and claws. I once had a
very good opportunity of noting the manner in which a big male lion
killed a heavy ox, which would certainly have scaled more than twice
its own weight. This ox was killed during the night, but as the lion
was immediately driven from the carcase, it had no time to inflict any
wound upon it other than those made when it first seized its victim,
and the ground being soft from recent rain, every step taken by both
the ox and the lion during the brief struggle was plainly visible. The
lion had evidently crept close up to where the ox was lying (within
forty yards of my waggon), and had either attacked it where it lay
or just as it was rising to its feet. It had not jumped upon its
victim, but throughout the struggle had always kept its hind-feet on
the ground. The only wounds that had been inflicted on the ox were
claw-marks on the nose and on the top of the left shoulder-blade, and
the lion had evidently seized it by the muzzle with its left paw and on
the top of the shoulder with the right, and had simply held it, pulling
its head in towards its chest. The ox had plunged forward, dragging
the lion with it for a few yards, and had then fallen with its head
twisted right under it and its neck dislocated. Whether the lion had
broken the ox's neck by its own strength, or whether the dislocation
was due to the way in which it fell with its head twisted in under it,
I cannot say; but my experience is that when a single lion tries to
kill an ox or a buffalo, it invariably seizes it over the muzzle with
one paw, and usually succeeds in either breaking its victim's neck
or causing it to break it itself by its own weight in falling. When
several lions attack an ox or buffalo, they will often bite and tear it
all over and take a long time to kill it. Upon several occasions I have
listened to the protracted bellowing of buffaloes being thus mauled to
death. Upon one occasion a party of five lions stampeded my oxen as
they lay round the waggon, and very soon seized and pulled down one
of them. The wretched creature bellowed most fearfully, and must have
been suffering terribly. Hastily lighting torches of long dry grass,
several of my Kafirs and I ran to help it. The blazing grass scared
the lions off, and they left the ox before the light of the torches
reached them. The wounded animal immediately got up and rushed off
again into the darkness, but had not gone far before its loud bellowing
told us the lions had got hold of it once more. They took some time to
kill it, but its agonised bellowings gradually died away in low moans,
until at length all was again quiet. During the approach of these five
lions to my camp, and the subsequent chase and long-drawn-out killing
of the ox, not one of them made the slightest sound; and as far as my
own personal experience goes, with one exception, whenever lions have
reconnoitred or attacked my camp at night, and bitten or killed any
of my native followers or cattle or horses, they have done all their
stalking and killing without making a sound. If disturbed, however,
they always growl loudly. On the occasion I have referred to as an
exception to this rule, three lions--as we learnt the next morning by
the spoor--came quite close up to my bivouac one night in Northern
Mashunaland, and one of them gave a very loud roar which woke us all
up. I was travelling at the time with a small cart and eight oxen,
which were tied to the yokes, and were right in the open, unprotected
either by fires or any kind of kraal or fence. My two horses were
tied to one of the wheels, and my few native servants and myself were
lying close to them, with a small fence of soft bush behind us. The
three lions that came so near us in the night could not have been very
hungry, or they would assuredly have seized one of my oxen. Perhaps the
one that so suddenly roared only did so with the idea of frightening
the oxen, and if one of them had broken the raw hide thong with which
it was fastened to the yoke, and run off away from our camp, all three
of them would very likely have pursued and killed it. Fortunately,
neither my oxen nor my horses showed much fear on this occasion, and
although the former pulled a bit, they did not break their thongs,
and we soon quieted them and then built up some big fires. The lions
passed on up the little river near which we were camped, and before
long began to roar loudly, a pretty good sign, I think, that they had
already dined and were not hunting. Why, when a family of four or five
lions are hunting together, one of their number being an old male, they
should kill an ox so much less artistically than the old male would
have done, if he had been alone, I do not know. Possibly the eagerness
of each member of the party renders a scientific attack by any one of
them impossible, or perhaps the older lions allow the younger ones to
do the killing for practice. There is no doubt, I think, that lions
know that the head, throat, and the back of the neck are the most vital
spots in all animals on which they prey. Human beings are nearly always
seized by the head or neck; horses, donkeys, and zebras are almost
invariably killed by bites in the back of the neck just behind the
ears, or by bites in the throat; whilst they either dislocate the necks
of heavy animals like buffaloes, or hold them in such a way that they
can hardly help falling and breaking their own necks. The lion which
broke the neck of one of my oxen, as I have described above, escaped
punishment when it returned to the carcase the following evening owing
to my rifle missing fire. It then visited a mining camp close at hand,
and forcing its way into an enclosure in which there were fourteen
sheep and goats and one calf, it killed every one of these unfortunate
animals. I shot this lion early the following morning and then examined
its victims. Every one of them, the calf as well as the sheep and
goats, had been killed by a single bite in the head. In each case the
upper canine teeth had been driven through the top of the skull or the
back of the neck just behind the ears. I once came on a young elephant
only a few minutes after it had been killed by a lion. The only wounds
I could find were deep tooth-marks in the throat.
Lions kill and eat every kind of wild animal in Africa with the
exception of the Pachydermata--though they occasionally catch and
kill a young elephant or rhinoceros that has been separated from its
mother--but as long as buffaloes and zebras are plentiful in the
countries they inhabit, they will kill far more of these than of any
other animal. Quaggas and Burchell's zebras probably formed their
chief food on the plains of the Cape Colony, the Orange River Colony,
and the Transvaal before those countries were settled by Europeans;
whilst farther north, where great numbers of buffaloes frequented the
neighbourhood of every river, the lions lived almost entirely on these
animals, following the herds in all their wanderings, just as in North
America the prairie wolves were always in attendance on the bisons.
Giraffes are sometimes killed by lions, but according to my experience
only very rarely; no doubt because they must be very awkward animals
to pull down, and also for the reason that, generally speaking, they
inhabit dry, waterless stretches of country, throughout which game is
usually only sparsely distributed and into which lions do not penetrate.
Although I have excluded the Pachydermata from the list of animals on
which lions prey, there nevertheless seems to be good evidence that
these carnivora do sometimes attack and kill good-sized cow elephants.
I well remember an old Boer hunter, Michael Engelbreght, telling me of
an unsuccessful attack made by lions on a cow elephant within a short
distance of the shooting hole where he was lying one night watching
for elephants coming to drink at Tamasanka vley on the old road to the
Zambesi. This incident had occurred only a few nights before I met
Engelbreght at the vley in question. But it happened so long ago (in
1874) that I cannot remember anything more than that the elephant was
held up by the lions for some hours, and that the trumpeting of the
former was accompanied by the loud growling of the latter, and that
when my informant examined the ground where the combat had taken place,
the next morning, he found a great deal of thorn bush trampled down
by the elephant, and some blood on the ground. The former, however,
although probably it had been badly bitten in the trunk and legs, had
kept the lions from its throat, and had finally beaten them off and
made good its retreat. Michael Engelbreght was at that time a man of
over sixty years of age, and as he had been a hunter from his youth
upwards, in the golden days of South African hunting, he must have had
a vast experience of the habits of wild animals, but I well remember
that he spoke of this incident of an elephant having been attacked by
lions as wonderful and almost incredible.
I have, however, heard of another case of an elephant having been
attacked and killed by lions.
When passing through Kimberley in 1895, I met my old friend Mr. F.
S. Arnot, who has done such splendid work as a pioneer missionary in
Central Africa, and who is an absolutely reliable man, and he then told
me a story of an elephant having been killed by lions near Lake Mweru.
Hearing last year that Mr. Arnot was in England, I wrote and asked him
if he would kindly tell me this story again, as I wanted to put it
on record. In the course of his answer to my letter Mr. Arnot wrote:
"The lion story I told you may appear rather _tall_ to some, but when
travelling between Lakes Tanganyika and Mweru, in November 1894, and
when skirting the northern end of the great Mweru Marsh--a regular
elephants' stronghold--my men suddenly left me _en masse_--they were
a raw set of men--returning presently with elephant flesh. They then
told me that our guides having informed them that they had that morning
seen six hungry lions attack and pull down a full-grown cow elephant,
just ahead of where we then were, they had left me so suddenly in order
to drive the lions off and get some meat. Unfortunately, I did not see
the lions myself, but there could be no doubt about the truth of our
guides' statement, for I saw the lions' spoor and the carcase of the
dead elephant. The tusks were very small, but my men brought them. They
may have weighed from four to five pounds each."
As the tusks were so small, this elephant could hardly have been a
full-grown cow; but it must have been a good-sized animal, probably a
young cow about three-parts grown. It is a great pity that Mr. Arnot
did not examine the carcase carefully and ascertain exactly how the
elephant had been killed. As the natives, however, asserted positively
that they had seen six lions attack and kill it, and as Mr. Arnot is
fully convinced that their story was true, I think it ought to be
accepted as a fact, especially as cases of full-grown elephants having
been killed by tigers in India and Burma have been put on record.