NOTES ON THE LION (_concluded_)
Method of opening a carcase--Removal of paunch and entrails--Lions
skilful butchers--Paunch and entrails not usually eaten--Lions
not bone-eaters--Will eat putrid meat--Will sometimes devour
their own kind--Number of cubs at birth--Check on inordinate
increase of carnivorous animals--The lion's roar--Diversity
of opinion concerning its power--Probable explanation--Volume
of sound when several lions roar in unison--A nerve-shaking
experience--Lions silent when approaching their prey--Roar after
killing--And in answer to one another--Lions only roar freely in
undisturbed districts--Lions essentially game-killers--But change
their habits with circumstances--Killing lions with spear and
shield--Bambaleli's splendid courage--Lions killed by Bushmen with
poisoned arrows--Behaviour of domestic animals in the presence of
lions--Cattle sometimes terrified, at other times show no fear.
When once a lion or lions have killed an animal they almost always
open the carcase at the point where the skin is thinnest, that is, in
the flank just in front of where the thigh joins the belly. They then
at once tear off and eat this thin skin and the flesh attached to it,
and all the skin and flesh covering the paunch and entrails, which
latter they then proceed to remove from the carcase. The neatness and
cleanliness with which lions can take the inside out of an animal they
have just killed has always struck me as little short of marvellous.
Every one who has had to do much cutting up of large animals knows how
easy it is to tear the skin of the paunch and get some of its contents
on the meat, and African natives are nearly always very clumsy and
dirty in this respect. Lions, however, are able to remove the paunch
and entrails from the carcase of a large animal as skilfully as a
trained butcher. The offal itself is dragged away to a distance of ten
yards or so, and then covered with earth or grass, which is scratched
up and thrown over it. As a rule, lions certainly do not eat the
paunch and entrails of any animals which they may kill, but I once had
occasion to search through a refuse-heap left by a party of lions near
the carcase of a buffalo they had killed, in the hope of finding some
scavenger beetles of a rare species, and I found that it contained
nothing but vegetable matter--the contents of the buffalo's stomach. If
the lions had not eaten the entrails and the covering of the paunch,
I do not know what had become of them. This refuse-heap as usual had
been thickly covered with earth and grass, which had been scratched up
from all around it. Once the inside of a carcase has been removed, the
liver, kidneys, heart, and lungs are eaten, with all the fat adhering
to them. Then the carcase is again torn open at the anus, and the soft
meat of the buttocks is devoured in great lumps, which are swallowed
whole with the skin attached. No lion will ever scrunch up heavy bones
like a hyæna, but should he kill an animal in good condition, he will
swallow all the comparatively soft bones of the brisket, and also gnaw
off the ends of all the rib-bones. The idea that lions will not eat
the flesh of any animal which they have not killed themselves is quite
erroneous. It would, indeed, be more correct to say that as long as
lions can find dead animals to eat, they will not take the trouble to
hunt. Nor are they at all particular as to the condition of any carcase
they may chance to come across. As long as there is any meat left on
it, they will eat it, and I have known lions to remain for days in
the neighbourhood of the putrid carcases of elephants, on which they
fed nightly, in preference to hunting for fresh meat, although game of
all kinds was plentiful in the neighbourhood. Two instances of lions
eating the flesh of one of their own kind have come under my personal
observation, and although such a practice is undoubtedly of unusual
occurrence, yet I should imagine that, provided hunger and opportunity
were both present, there are few lions that would disdain a meal off
the carcase of an individual of their own species.
Although I am informed that lionesses in captivity often give birth to
four, and sometimes to as many as five or six cubs, in the wild state
the usual number is certainly three, and of these a large number, for
some reason which has never been ascertained, never reach maturity, for
it is seldom that lionesses are met with accompanied by more than two
large cubs, and they often only rear one.
It is an axiom that all birds and mammals living in countries where the
climatic conditions are favourable, and where they have no enemies,
will increase in numbers up to the limit of the food-supply available
for them. When the ground becomes overstocked, diseases break out,
which only the strongest and healthiest animals are able to resist,
and these survivors perpetuate the race, which will once more increase
and multiply up to a certain point. But what is it that checks the
inordinate increase of carnivorous animals? They certainly do not go on
increasing in numbers up to the limit of their food-supply, otherwise
there are many parts of Africa in which, before the advent of the white
man, lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyænas, and wild dogs, not to mention
all the smaller carnivora, would have increased to such an extent that
they would gradually have denuded the country of all herbivorous
animals, and would then have died in large numbers themselves, till in
the end there would have been few animals of any kind left. But such
catastrophes never occur. Wherever, before the advent of the white man,
game was very plentiful in Africa, lions and all other carnivorous
animals were also numerous, but the meat-eaters never increased to
such an extent as to reduce the numbers of the grass-eaters on which
they preyed. Let us take the Pungwe district in South-East Africa
for example. In 1891 I found the country both east and west of the
Pungwe river teeming with game, particularly buffaloes and zebras,
the favourite food of the lion. Up to that time no Europeans had
ever hunted or in any way disturbed the wild beasts in that country,
and the few scattered natives living there were timid and ill armed,
and certainly never killed or interfered with lions, which animals
therefore were absolutely without enemies. As this state of things must
have endured for centuries, or more probably for untold thousands, of
years, why had not the lions and other carnivorous animals, living as
they had been doing in such a well-stocked preserve, increased up to
the limit of their food-supply? They certainly had not done so up to
1891, the year the white man first entered the country, and at once of
course changed all the natural conditions. Many lions certainly seem to
die in early cubhood, and this may be a provision of nature to check
their inordinate increase; but that neither they nor any other species
of carnivorous animal in Africa ever become so numerous, under the most
favourable conditions, as to seriously diminish the numbers of the
animals on which they prey is a well-ascertained fact.
Lionesses, I believe, only give birth to cubs at long intervals, for
although I have often seen young lions and lionesses with their mothers
which must have been at least two years old, I have never seen a
lioness accompanied by cubs of different ages.
One of the most distinguishing characteristics of the lion, and the one
which perhaps differentiates it more than anything else from all other
members of the cat tribe, is its roar. During more than twenty years
spent in hunting and pioneering in the African wilderness, I have heard
lions roaring under all sorts of conditions: in the stillness of frosty
winter nights, when the camp fire blazed merrily, and as each fresh log
was thrown upon it sent up showers of sparks towards the cloudless,
star-decked sky; or amidst the crashing thunder-peals and blinding
flashes of lightning of a stormy night during the rainy season, when it
was sometimes quite impossible to keep a fire alight at all. On such
a night, when sitting wet and cold amongst one's Kafir boys, huddled
up beneath the scanty shelter of a few boughs (for I never carried a
tent with me in South Africa), the roaring of lions is not altogether a
reassuring sound.
On a still night the roaring of lions can be heard at a very great
distance, and should a party of these animals roar loudly quite a mile
away, I think most people would imagine that they were within one
hundred yards. One reason, I think, for the diversity of opinion as to
the power and volume of the lion's roar is, that very few people have
ever really heard several lions roaring together quite close to them,
although they may believe they have done so. In 1891, and again in
1892, I spent some weeks travelling and hunting in the country between
Lake Sungwe and the Pungwe river, in South-East Africa, and there was
scarcely a night on both those trips when lions were not heard roaring,
often as many as three, and once four, different troops of these
animals appearing to be answering one another from different points of
the compass; but although on the second trip--I was alone in 1891--my
companions, who had not had much experience in the veld, often thought
the lions were very near us, I am sure they were never within a mile of
our camp.
When a party of lions are together, perhaps on their way to drink after
a meal, one of them will halt and breathe out from its expanded lungs a
full-toned note, which rolls afar across the silent wilderness. As it
draws in its breath for another effort, a second member of the party
emulates the leader, and then a third, a fourth, and a fifth perhaps
will join in, and all of them then seem to vie with one another as to
which can produce the greatest volume of sound, and it is a fact that
at the climax of the roaring of a troop of lions the whole air seems
to vibrate and tremble. Of a sudden the grand booming, vibrating notes
cease, and are immediately succeeded by a series of short, deep-toned,
coughing grunts, which gradually die away to a mere hissing expulsion
of the breath. Then not a sound is heard until, after an interval of a
few minutes, the grand competitive roaring peals across the lonely veld
once more. During some few out of the thousands of nights I have lain
on the ground, beneath the stars, in the interior of South Africa, I
have heard lions roaring pretty near my camp; but never quite so near
as one dark night in 1879. I was returning from the Chobi river to
where I had left my waggons in the Mababi country, and was alone with
five Kafirs. One evening just at dusk we reached the last water-hole in
the Sunta river. We had made a long march in intense heat, as it was
the month of November, and were all so tired that we made no camp nor
collected much firewood, but just lay down on the sandy ground round a
very small fire. Not long after dark we heard a troop of lions roaring
in the distance; presently they roared again evidently nearer, and
roaring magnificently at intervals, they continued to approach until
there could be no doubt that they were coming down to drink at the
water-hole close to our bivouac. This water-hole was situated in the
bed of the river at the foot of a steep high bank on the top of which
we were lying. A game-path led down into the river-bed some fifteen
yards away, and the lions were coming down this path. The night was
inky black, as the sky was overcast with heavy clouds, for the rainy
season was close at hand. Our fire had died down to a few embers, and
it was useless looking for wood in such darkness. I don't think the
lions ever noticed our dying fire, or ever had any idea of our close
proximity to the water-hole, as, after having roared about a quarter
of a mile away, they walked noiselessly past us along the game-path,
and descending to the river-bed, commenced to slake their thirst. We
could hear them lapping the water when they were drinking. They roared
three times in the river-bed just below us, and the volume of sound
they emitted when all roaring in unison was nerve-shaking. My Kafirs
sat motionless and silent, holding their hands over their mouths. There
were no trees of any size near us, only small bushes, so they could
not make a run for it to any place of safety. They confessed to me the
next morning that when they heard the lions roaring so near them "their
hearts died," meaning that they were terrified; and although I myself
was not then of a very nervous disposition, and moreover believed that
when lions roared loudly they were not hungry, and would therefore be
unlikely to attack a human being, I was very glad when they at last
left the water and we heard them go roaring back to where they had
probably been feeding on the carcase of a buffalo or some other animal
before they came to drink.
I certainly do not believe that lions roar when approaching their
prey, for surely such a proceeding would be as foolish as it would be
for a burglar to whistle and sing whilst committing a robbery, but they
will sometimes roar loudly in the late evening or early night, just
as they leave their lairs and set out to look for prey. When moving
about at night, lions sometimes give vent to a low purring growl--very
different in sound to a roar--which may be a call-note to others of
their party, and if driven off by shots from a horse or an ox they have
killed in the night, they will growl loudly. In approaching a camp with
the intention of killing oxen, horses, donkeys, or human beings, lions
are absolutely silent, as I believe they always are when approaching
any kind of wild game. I believe that lions often roar after they have
killed an animal and before commencing to feed, and at intervals during
the night, as they lie round the carcase, and they certainly often
roar when on their way to drink in the early hours of the night, but
probably after they have killed some large animal and made a meal. The
roaring of one lion or party of lions undoubtedly excites other lions
within hearing to roar in answer. I once heard several lions roaring
loudly throughout the night, and even after the sun had risen the next
morning, and I found that a solitary male lion had approached a party
consisting of another male, two females, and two large cubs, standing
as high at the shoulder as the full-grown females. The single male was,
I imagine, jealous of his married kinsman, but feared to engage in
deadly combat with him, and so contented himself by roaring defiance at
his rival, who answered with counter roars, in which his whole family
joined. The next morning I just missed getting a shot at the unattached
lion, but killed the other, a very fine but hasty tempered animal, as
he charged me at sight without any provocation.
In countries where lions have long lived undisturbed by human beings,
and where they have really been the undisputed lords of the wilderness,
they roar very freely, and may often be heard even after the sun has
risen. But when white men suddenly invade a well-stocked game-country
and disturb its peace by continual shooting, lions gradually grow
more and more silent, till it becomes rare to hear one roar at all,
though there may still be a good many of them about. The African lion
is essentially a wilderness hunter and a game-killer, but when man,
whether savage or civilised, encroaches upon his preserves, killing or
driving off the game, and bringing in cattle, sheep, and goats in their
place, then he preys upon these newly introduced animals and wars with
their guardians to the death.
[Illustration: "A PICKED MAN OF DAUNTLESS HEART ... WOULD RUSH FORWARD
ALONE...."]
Before the introduction of firearms amongst the Matabele, these
courageous savages, though only armed with shield and spear, were
accustomed to join battle without a moment's hesitation with any lion
or lions that interfered with the cattle given over to their charge
by their king. Full and drowsy after his feed of beef, the marauding
lion would not usually go far from the carcase of the ox or cow he had
killed before lying down to sleep. Soon after break of day the swarthy
cattle guards would track him to his lair and silently surround and
then close in on him, heaping every term of abuse upon his head as they
did so. The lion thus roused, and seeing all retreat cut off, would
stand at bay, and growling savagely, with head held low, ears laid
flat, lashing tail, and mouth held slightly open, would glance from
side to side with blazing eyes upon its foes. Then a picked man of
dauntless heart, armed with a single stabbing spear and a very large
ox-hide shield, would rush forward alone towards the lion, cursing
and abusing it in true Homeric fashion. The lion, seeing its retreat
cut off, almost invariably accepted the challenge and rushed upon the
advancing savage, whose endeavour it was to strike one blow at his
assailant and then fall to the ground beneath his broad shield. At
the same time, his friends would rush in from both sides and quickly
spear the lion to death, but often not before one or two of them had
paid the penalty for their daring with their lives. Many lions used to
be killed annually in the olden time round the outlying cattle posts
in Matabeleland, and many of Umziligazi's[5] bravest warriors died of
wounds received in these gladiatorial games. Many years ago I used to
be very friendly with the second Enduna of Bulawayo, one Bambaleli,
a splendid specimen of a good, brave, honest, heathen gentleman. He
told me that on five occasions he had been chosen to rush in on a lion
that had been surrounded and brought to bay. Twice he escaped without
a wound, thanks to the protection afforded by his great shield and the
quickness with which his comrades had rushed in to his assistance; but
in the other three encounters he had been severely bitten, once in the
right shoulder and twice through the muscles of his thigh, and he bore
the scars of all these honourable wounds to his grave. The fact that,
on each of the occasions when he was hurt, his formidable assailant had
only been able to get in one savage bite, shows, I think, the quickness
with which his friends had come to his rescue.
[5] The father of Lo Bengula.
Before they were supplied with firearms by their Bechwana masters, the
Bushmen of the Kalahari sometimes killed lions with poisoned arrows.
Old Bushmen have assured me that they had themselves killed lions by
this means. Their plan, they said, was to creep close up to a lion
lying asleep after a heavy meal, and then to shoot one of their little
reed arrows into some part of its body from behind the shelter of a
bush or tree. The sharp prick would awake the lion but not greatly
alarm it, and as it would see nothing to account for the disturbance
of its slumbers, it would probably think it had been stung by some
fly. It would probably, however, get up and walk away. The shaft of
the arrow would soon fall to the ground, but the bone head, barbed and
thickly smeared with poison, would remain fixed in its victim's hide,
and the deadly compound would gradually permeate its blood and sap its
strength. The Bushmen averred that a lion once struck by a poisoned
arrow never recovered, though it would not die till the third day.
Domestic animals such as horses and oxen sometimes show great alarm at
the near proximity of lions, at others they only seem slightly scared,
and sometimes they do not seem to be frightened at all. If a horse has
once been bitten by a lion, or if another horse tied up close to it
has been attacked, it will probably ever afterwards evince great fear
at the smell of a lion. But, on the other hand, I have had several
horses in my possession, which I bought in the Cape Colony or the
Orange Free State, which, when I had trained them to carry the meat of
antelopes, never showed the slightest sign of fear when a reeking lion
skin was put on their backs, although they could never possibly have
seen or smelt a lion before I took them up country. I had some trouble
at first to train some of these horses to carry the meat of any kind
of fresh-killed game, and they always began by smelling it and then
snorting; but once they became accustomed to the smell of antelope
meat, they showed no further alarm when the skin of a freshly killed
lion was thrown over the saddle.
I have known a herd of cattle, after one of their number had been
killed by a lion, travel more than twenty miles without feeding,
evidently in a state of terror all the time. On the other hand, I was
lying in my blankets at my camp on the Hanyani river, in Mashunaland,
one day early in 1885, just in the throes of a sharp attack of fever
and ague, when my cattle-herd came rushing in, saying that there was
a lion amongst my cattle, and that it was killing a heifer. This was
about two o'clock in the afternoon. Pulling myself together, I had one
of my horses saddled up, and calling my dogs, rode out to see what
had happened. I found my cattle, over fifty altogether in number, all
feeding quietly not 400 yards away from my camp, just where they were,
my herd-boy said, when the lion came amongst them. As it turned out,
it was a lioness. She had clawed a three-year-old heifer in the flanks
and on the hind-quarters, but had either been kicked off by the heifer
itself or driven off by the rest of the herd. At any rate, the sudden
appearance of this lioness in their midst had created no panic amongst
the cattle. I had a chase after this lioness with my dogs, but she
crossed the river and got into some very thick bush, and as I could not
get a sight of her and was feeling very unwell, I returned to camp.
In 1887, one day about noon, four lions--two males and two
females--attacked my oxen and killed two of them, but without
apparently alarming the others in the slightest degree, as they never
ran away nor showed any sign of having been frightened. One dark night
early in 1892, I was camped near the Revue river, in South-East Africa,
and my oxen were lying loose round the waggon, as I thought there were
no lions in the neighbourhood. About midnight five lions came up to
reconnoitre, and my oxen no doubt smelt them, for they jumped up and
stampeded in a body. As they ran, the lions caught and pulled down one
of them. The next morning I thought I might possibly have to follow my
frightened oxen a long way before overtaking them, but I found them
feeding quietly, and showing no signs of having been terrified, only
a few hundred yards away. On the whole, I do not think that domestic
animals have that ingrained and instinctive fear of lions with which
they are usually credited, though the smell of these animals is
doubtless disagreeable to them.