NOTES ON THE SPOTTED HYÆNA
Character of hyænas--Contrasted with that of wolves--Story
illustrating the strength and audacity of a spotted hyæna--How a
goat was seized and carried off--A mean trick--Boldness of hyænas
near native villages--More suspicious in the wilderness--Very
destructive to native live stock--Will sometimes enter native
huts--Giving an old woman to the hyænas--How the smelling out
of witches benefited the hyænas--"Come out, missionary, and
give us the witch"--Number of hyænas infesting Matabeleland in
olden times--Trials for witchcraft in Matabeleland--Food of
hyænas--Strength of jaws--Charged by a wounded hyæna--Heavy trap
broken up--Killing hyænas with set guns--Hyæna held by dogs--Hyæna
attacked by wild dogs--Pace of hyænas--Curious experience on
the Mababi plain--The hyæna's howl--Rhinoceros calf killed by
hyænas--Smell of hyænas--Hyæna meat a delicacy--Small cows and
donkeys easily killed by hyænas--Size and weight of the spotted
hyæna--Number of whelps.
It has always appeared to me that the qualities and characteristics of
the African spotted hyæna have met with somewhat scant recognition at
the hands of writers on sport, travel, and natural history, for this
animal is usually tersely described as a cowardly, skulking brute, and
then dismissed with a few contemptuous words.
Yet I think that the spotted hyæna of Africa is quite as dangerous and
destructive an animal as the wolf of North America, which is usually
treated with respect, sometimes with sympathy, by its biographers,
though I cannot see that wolves are in any way nobler in character
than hyænas. Both breeds roam abroad by night, ever crafty, fierce,
and hungry, and both will be equally ready to tear open the graves
and devour the flesh of human beings, should the opportunity present
itself, whether on the shores of the Arctic Sea, where men's skins are
yellowy brown, or beneath the shadow of the Southern Cross, where they
are sooty black. There is nothing really noble, though much that is
interesting, in the nature of either wolves or hyænas, but neither of
these animals ought to be despised. Hyænas are big, powerful, dangerous
brutes, and at night often show great determination and courage in
their attempts to obtain food at the expense of human beings. The
following story will illustrate, I think, both the strength and the
audacity of a spotted hyæna.
I was once camped many years ago near a small native village on the
high veld of Mashunaland to the south-east of the present town of
Salisbury. A piece of ground some fifty yards long by twenty in breadth
had been enclosed by a small light hedge made of thornless boughs, as
it was supposed that there were no lions in this part of the country.
In the midst of this enclosure my waggon was standing one night with
the oxen tied to the yokes, and my two shooting horses fastened to
the wheels. On the previous day I had shot three eland bulls, and had
had every scrap of the meat as well as the skins and heads carried to
my waggon, and on the evening of the following day there were a large
number of natives in my camp from the surrounding villages. These
men had brought me an abundant supply of native beer, ground nuts,
pumpkins, sweet potatoes, maize, etc., and as I, on my side, had given
them several hundredweights of meat, both they and my own boys were
preparing to make a night of it in my encampment.
About an hour after dark, the boy who looked after my horses stretched
one of the eland hides on the ground behind the waggon, and then
pouring a large pot full of half-boiled maize upon it, spread it out
to cool before putting it into the horses' nosebags for their evening
feed. At this time my whole camp was lighted up by the blazing fires
the natives had lit all along one side of the enclosure, and of course
within the hedge. Every one was happy, with plenty of fat meat to eat
and beer to drink, and the whole crowd kept up an incessant babble of
talk and laughter, as only happy Africans can.
I was quite alone, as I had been for months, with these good-tempered
primitive people, and I may here say that I went to sleep every night
in their midst, and always completely in their power (as I had not a
single armed follower with me), feeling as absolutely safe, as indeed I
was, as if I had been in an hotel in London.
I had just finished my evening meal, and was sitting by the fire that
had been lighted at the foot of my bed of dry grass, when I saw a big
hyæna burst through the lightly made hedge of boughs on the other side
of the waggon and advance boldly into the centre of the enclosure,
where he stood for a moment looking about him, plainly visible to
every one in the bright light cast by twenty fires. The next moment
he advanced to where the eland skin lay spread upon the ground behind
the waggon, and seizing it, dashed back with it through the fence and
disappeared into the darkness of the night.
I had several large dogs with me on this trip, which were all lying
near the fires when the hyæna entered the encampment from the other
side, but as the latter had come up against the wind, they had not
smelt him. When, however, he appeared within a few yards of them,
and in the full light of the fires, they of course saw him, and as he
seized the eland skin and dashed off with it, scattering my horses'
feed to the winds as he did so, the dogs rushed after him, barking
loudly. I do not know exactly what the green hide of a big eland bull
may weigh, but it is certainly very much heavier than the skin of a
bullock, and of course a very awkward thing to carry off, as the weight
would be distributed over so much ground. Yet, although this hyæna
had only a start of a few yards, my dogs did not overtake him, or at
any rate did not force him to drop the skin, until he had reached the
little stream of water that ran through the valley more than a hundred
yards below my camp. Here we found the dogs guarding it a few minutes
later, and again dragged it back to the waggon.
I knew the hyæna would follow, so I went and sat outside the camp
behind a little bush on the trail of the skin, and very soon he walked
close up to me. I could only just make out a something darker than the
night, but as it moved, I knew it could be nothing but the animal I was
waiting for, and when it was very near me I fired and wounded it, and
we killed it in the little creek below the camp. It proved to be a very
large old male hyæna, which the Mashunas said had lately killed several
head of cattle, besides many sheep and goats.
I cannot help thinking that this hyæna must have thrown part of the
heavy hide over his shoulders as he seized it, though I cannot say that
I saw him do this, but if he did not half carry it, I don't believe he
could possibly have gone off with it at the pace he did, for the dogs
did not overtake him until he had nearly reached the stream, more than
a hundred yards distant from my camp. I am inclined to the view that
this hyæna must have half carried, half dragged this heavy hide, as I
once saw one of these animals seize a goat by the back of the neck,
and throwing it over its shoulders, gallop off with it. This was just
outside a native kraal in Western Matabeleland near the river Gwai. I
had outspanned my waggon there one evening, and having bought a large
fat goat, which must have weighed fifty pounds as it stood, I fastened
it by one of its forelegs to one of the front wheels of the waggon. I
then had some dry grass cut, and made my bed on the ground alongside
of the other front wheel, not six feet distant from where the goat was
fastened.
It was a brilliant moonlight night and very cold, and I had not long
turned in, and was lying wide awake, when I heard the goat give a loud
"baa," and instantly turning my head, saw a hyæna seize it by the back
of the neck, break the thong with which it was tied to the waggon wheel
with a jerk, and go off at a gallop with, as well as I could see, the
body of the goat thrown over his shoulders. All my dogs were lying
round the fires where the Kafirs were sleeping when the hyæna seized
the goat, and as he had come up against the wind, had not smelt him.
But when the goat "baaed" they all sprang up and dashed after the
marauder, closely followed by my Kafirs. The dogs caught up to the
hyæna after a short chase and made him drop the goat, which the Kafirs
brought back to the waggon. It was quite alive, but as it had been
badly bitten behind the ears I had it killed at once.
A hyæna once played me a particularly mean trick. I was outspanned
one night towards the close of the year 1891 in Mashunaland near the
Hanyani river, not many miles from the town of Salisbury. It was either
the night of the full moon or within a day or two of it. At any rate,
it was a gloriously bright moonlight night. I had shot a reedbuck that
day, and in the evening placed its hind-quarters on a flat granite
rock, close to where my cart was standing. I then made my bed on the
ground close to the flat rock, and, as the moonlight was so bright,
never troubled to surround my camp with any kind of fence. Pulling
the blanket over my head, I soon went fast asleep. During the night
I woke up, and was astonished to find that it was dark. This I soon
saw was owing to a complete eclipse of the moon. When the shadow had
passed, and it once more became light, I found that the choice piece
of antelope meat which I had placed on the stone close behind my head
was gone, and I have no doubt that it had been carried off by a hyæna
during the eclipse of the moon.
[Illustration: "ON THE SECOND NIGHT THEY ONCE MORE LEFT IT ALONE, BUT
ON THE THIRD THEY DEVOURED IT."]
Hyænas are always far bolder and more dangerous in the neighbourhood of
native villages than they are in the uninhabited wilderness.
In the year 1872 a Bushman Hottentot who had shot a Kafir in cold
blood, was beaten to death with clubs by friends of the murdered man
close to where my waggon was standing near the Jomani river, in a wild,
uninhabited part of Eastern Matabeleland. I did not know anything about
this summary administration of justice until it was over, as it took
place at the waggons of some Griqua hunters who were camped near me.
The body of the Hottentot was then dragged to a spot less than three
hundred yards from my waggon, and quite close to the Griqua encampment.
That night several hyænas laughed and cackled and howled round the
corpse from dark to daylight, but they never touched it. On the second
night they once more left it alone, but on the third they devoured it.
I do not know why these hyænas waited until the third night before
making a meal off the body of this dead Hottentot, but I imagine that
it was because they were hyænas of the wilderness, unaccustomed to, and
therefore suspicious of the smell of a human being. I have noticed,
too, that in the wilds hyænas will often, though not always, pass the
carcase of a freshly killed lion without touching it.
In any part of the country, however, where there is a considerable
native population, and where consequently there is little or no game,
hyænas have no fear or suspicion of a dead man. They make their living
out of the natives round whose villages they patrol nightly. They
soon discover any weak spot in the pens where the goats, sheep, or
calves are kept, and kill and carry off numbers of these animals. They
often, too, kill full-grown cows by tearing their udders open and then
disembowelling them, and will sometimes enter a hut, the door of which
has been left open, and make a snap at the head of a sleeping man or
woman, or carry off a child. When lying once very weak and ill with
fever in a hut in a small Banyai village near the Zambesi, I awoke
suddenly and saw a hyæna standing in the open doorway, through which
the moon was shining brightly. I lay quite still and he came right
inside, but he heard me moving as I caught hold of my rifle, and bolted
out, carrying with him a bundle tied up with raw hide thongs. The
latter he afterwards ate, but we recovered the contents of the bundle
the next morning.
Besides being able to dig up the carelessly buried bodies of natives
who have died a natural death, the customs of some of the warlike
tribes used to provide hyænas with many a dainty meal. In 1873 my old
friend the late Mr. Frank Mandy--afterwards for so many years the
manager of De Beers Compound at Kimberley--saw some natives dragging,
with thongs attached to the wrists, what he thought was a dead body
across the stony ground outside the native town of Bulawayo.[6] On
going nearer he was horrified to find that the body was that of an
old woman, and that she was alive. On remonstrating with the men who
were dragging the poor creature along, and taxing them with their
inhumanity, they seemed quite hurt, and said, "Why, what use is she?
She's an old slave, and altogether past work, and we are going to give
her to the hyænas." They accordingly dragged her down to the valley
below Bulawayo and tied her to a tree. My friend had followed and
watched them, and that evening, as soon as it was dusk, he and a trader
named Grant--who was murdered in Mashunaland by the natives during
the rising of 1896--went down to her with a stretcher, and cutting
the thongs that bound her to the tree, carried her up to Mandy's hut,
where, however, she died during the night.
[6] The original native town built by Lo Bengula in 1870, about twelve
miles from the present European city.
I do not wish it to be understood that the custom of tying old and
worn-out slaves to trees, whilst still alive, to be devoured by hyænas,
was very common, but it cannot have been very unusual either, as Mandy
told me that many natives looked on with absolute indifference whilst
the old woman whose fate I have described was dragged past them; so the
hyænas must have got many a good feed in this way, especially round
the larger towns. But the native custom which was most advantageous
to these animals was the practice of smelling out witches. In
Matabeleland, in the time of Umziligazi and his son Lo Bengula, people
were continually being tried and convicted of witchcraft, and very
often not only was the actual witch, man or woman, killed, but their
families as well, sometimes even all their relations, as in the case
of Lotchi, head Enduna of the town of Induba, who was put to death in
1888, and the number of whose wives, children, and other relations who
were killed with him amounted to seventy. When the evidence had been
heard the king pronounced the sentence, which was often conveyed by
the two words "niga impisi" (give him, her, or them to the hyænas).
The wretches were then taken just outside the kraal fence and clubbed
to death. Their huts were also pulled down and thrown out. I remember
I was once sleeping at the house of Mr. C----, a missionary in
Matabeleland, when a lot of natives came to the door very early in the
morning, and kept shouting out in a very excited manner, "Come out,
missionary, and give us the witch; we want to take him to his mother,
who is a witch also, and kill them both together." It appeared that the
man they said was a witch was a native, who had been left in charge
of another missionary's house during his master's absence in the Cape
Colony, and who by steady work had accumulated enough money to buy a
few head of cattle. This man had been accused of bewitching some of the
king's cattle, and Lo Bengula had pronounced sentence of death upon
him. Directly I saw the men outside Mr. C----'s house I thought from
their manner that they had already killed the falsely accused man,
although they denied having done so; but when Mr. C---- and I went
across the valley towards the poor fellow's kraal on the other side,
they all left us.
It was as I had surmised; for we found Mr. H----'s faithful servant
lying on his face just outside the fence of his kraal, with his elbows
tied behind his back and his head in much the same condition as that
of Banquo's ghost, as represented on the London stage. On the evening
of that day the sun had not been long down when we heard the hyænas
howling, and that night they held high carnival over the murdered man's
remains.
Some idea of the number of hyænas that used to infest Matabeleland in
the old savage times may be gathered from the fact that my old friend
the late Mr. G. A. Philips once poisoned with strychnine twenty-one of
these animals round the old town of Bulawayo in one night.
I was never able to get a full account of the proceedings at a trial
for witchcraft in Matabeleland, but from all I have heard they must
have been strangely similar to those trials for the same alleged crime
which were so common a few centuries ago in England and Scotland. In
recent times in Matabeleland, just as in mediæval times in England,
everybody, almost without exception, believed in witchcraft, and there
can be no doubt that in both countries men and women existed who firmly
believed themselves to be possessed of the powers ascribed to witches.
One of the commonest accusations against men accused of witchcraft in
Matabeleland was that they had been seen riding a hyæna at night, and
on this account when one of these animals was killed, it was looked
upon as an unfeeling joke to point to it and say to any native, "Nansi
ibeza yako" ("There lies your horse").
Although hyænas eat large quantities of soft meat when they get the
chance, they can do very well on a diet of little else than bones. When
a large animal is killed by lions, these purely carnivorous animals eat
the greater part of the soft meat, and then leave the carcase to the
hyænas, which are pretty sure to be at hand. These latter then scrunch
up and swallow many of the bones. So powerful are their jaws that they
can break the leg-bones of buffaloes and giraffes, the ends of which
they gnaw off after extracting the marrow.
I once wounded a large hyæna as he ran out of a patch of long grass,
where he had been lying asleep. After following on his blood spoor for
a few hundred yards, I came upon him lying under a bush, evidently
badly wounded. On the previous day I had bought a very large-bladed
assegai from a Mashuna blacksmith, and so, dismounting, I took this
assegai from the Kafir who was carrying it, and advanced on the wounded
hyæna to give him the _coup de grace_. When I was still about ten
yards away from him, he jumped up and came towards me, not with a
rush certainly, but still pretty quickly, and with the evident intent
to do grievous bodily harm. As he advanced he repeatedly clacked his
jaws together, making a loud noise. I stood my ground with my heavy
assegai poised to strike, and when the hyæna was close to me I drove
it with all my force into his mouth. His jaws closed instantly on the
heavy iron blade, nor was I able to again withdraw it, for although the
wounded animal bit it all over from one end to the other, he opened
and shut his jaws with such surprising quickness that he never lost
possession of it. Finally, he pulled the iron blade of the assegai out
of its wooden shaft, and then, weakening from loss of blood, fell to
the ground, still clashing his jaws on it. He was not able to rise to
his feet again, and the Kafirs speared him to death as he lay. I found
that the heavy assegai blade had been twisted and bent and bitten in a
most extraordinary manner. I kept it for a long time, and wish I still
had it in my possession, as it was a veritable curiosity.
I once caught a hyæna in a very large heavy iron trap, which it
required the strength of two ordinary men to set. To this trap I had
attached a heavy iron waggon chain, but the other end of this chain
was not made fast to anything. I caught this hyæna by hanging up the
hind-leg of a sable antelope in a tree by the roadside about a hundred
yards from where my waggon was outspanned. The trap was set at the foot
of the tree without any bait and carefully covered. The hyæna must have
jumped up at the meat and sprung the trap as he came to the ground
again. One of the large iron spikes which projected from the jaws of
the trap must have gone right through the leg that had been caught, as
it was broken off and there was a lot of blood on the trap. When the
hyæna was caught he made no noise, at least no one heard anything, but
just dragged the trap with the heavy chain attached for a distance of
about a hundred yards away from the waggon road and then broke it up.
One jaw of the trap had been wrenched off, and the solid iron tongue
which supports the plate when such a trap is set, had been twisted
right round. The trap, which would probably have held a lion, was of
course destroyed and the hyæna gone.
I have killed many hyænas both near native villages and in wild
uninhabited parts of the country by setting guns for them, usually
baited with a lump of meat tied over the muzzle, and attached with a
string to a lever rigged on to the trigger, so that a straight pull
exploded the charge. Of course, one arranged the trap in such a way,
with the help of a few thorn bushes, that the hyæna was obliged to
take the meat from in front; but I never knew these animals show any
hesitation in doing so, with the result that they received the charge
full in the mouth and were killed instantly. I have no doubt, however,
that if a constant practice were made of setting guns for hyænas in a
certain district, they would become wary and suspicious after a few of
their number had been killed.
On one occasion my own dogs held a large old bitch hyæna until the
Kafirs came up and speared her, but this animal had, we afterwards
discovered, been shot some time previously through the lower jaw, the
end of which, with both the lower canine teeth, was gone, so that she
could not bite. This hyæna was, however, very fat, and the wound she
had received had long since healed up after all the broken pieces of
bone had sloughed out. How she had managed to eat anything but soft
food I cannot imagine, for what was left of her lower jaw, being in two
separate pieces, must have been useless for scrunching up bones.
One moonlight night I wounded a large male hyæna, partially paralysing
his hind-quarters, and my pack of dogs at once ran up to and attacked
him. Several of these dogs were large, powerful animals, and holding
the hyæna by the ears, throat, and neck, they certainly prevented him
from using his teeth to their discomfort, but they seemed quite unable
to pull him to the ground, and when I at last drove them off, I could
not see that they had hurt him in any way, so I shot him.
My friend Mr. Percy Reid once, when hunting on the Chobi river, heard
a great noise, a mixture of howls and yells going on near his camp
during the night, and his Kafirs asserted that they could distinguish
the cries both of wild dogs and spotted hyænas. The next morning the
weird sounds were again heard, and appeared to be approaching the camp,
so Mr. Reid went out to see what was going on. He had only walked a
short distance when he saw a very interesting sight. An old hyæna was
standing with its back to a large tree, surrounded by a double circle
of some twelve to fifteen wild dogs. The inner circle of these, by
turn, flew in on the hyæna and tried to bite him, falling back after
they had done so, and fearing apparently to come to close quarters.
At the end of some five or ten minutes the old hyæna, seizing an
opportunity, bolted for an adjacent tree, and, standing with his back
to this, again renewed the fight. Both the hyæna and his assailants
were so intent on their own concerns that they paid no heed whatever to
my friend's approach, and he walked up to within fifty yards of them
and shot two of the wild dogs. The remainder of the pack then ran
off, leaving the hyæna alone. Mr. Reid would not shoot him, because of
the brave and determined fight he had made, and he presently lumbered
off at a heavy gallop, apparently none the worse for his all-night
encounter with the wild dogs.
Hyænas do not always lie up during the day in caves or in holes in the
ground. I have often found them sleeping in patches of long grass,
and have had many a good gallop after them. I always found they ran
very fast, though I have galloped right up to several in good open
ground, but it was just as much as my horse could do to overtake them.
Once whilst riding across the Mababi plain in 1879, about two hours
after sunrise I heard some hyænas howling; but they were so far off
that I could not see them, though the plain was perfectly level and
open, as all the long summer grass had been burnt off. As the noise
they were making, however, was very great and quite unaccountable by
broad daylight, I determined to see what was going on, and galloped in
the direction of the strange sounds. After a time I sighted a regular
pack of hyænas trotting along towards the belt of thorn bush at the
top end of the plain, and beyond the hyænas I could see there were
three animals which looked larger and of a different build, and which
I thought must be lions. I then galloped as hard as I could in order
to get up to these three animals before they entered the bush. As I
galloped, I passed and counted fifteen hyænas, trotting along like
great dogs, most of which stopped and stood looking at me without any
sign of fear as I rode close past them. All the time some of them kept
howling. I now saw that the three larger animals were lionesses, and
that there were several more hyænas in front of them, so that there
must have been more than twenty of these animals out on the plain with
the lionesses, two of which latter I succeeded in shooting. After I had
skinned them, I rode back over the plain, but could discover no sign
of the carcase of a dead animal, as I should have done, had it been
anywhere near, by the flight of the vultures. Why had all these hyænas
collected round these three lionesses, and why were they escorting
them back to the bush again over the open plain? I can only hazard
the suggestion that they had followed the lionesses in the hope that
they would kill some large animal, whose bones they would then have
picked after the nobler animals had eaten their full. When I heard them
howling, perhaps they were upbraiding the lionesses for their want
of success. Hyænas do not live in packs, but when a large animal has
been killed, they scent the blood from afar and collect together for
the feast, separating and going off singly to their several lairs soon
after daybreak. The rapidity with which hyænas sometimes collect round
a carcase is truly astonishing, and shows how numerous these animals
are in countries where game is still plentiful.
I remember arriving late one evening, in July 1873, at a small
water-hole in the country to the west of the river Gwai, in
Matabeleland. I had left my waggon at a permanent water called
Linquasi two days previously, but being only armed with two four-bore
muzzle-loading elephant guns, and not having met with either elephants,
rhinoceroses, or buffaloes, was still without meat for myself and my
Kafirs, as, although I had seen giraffes, elands, and other antelopes,
I had not been able to get within shot of any of these animals with
the archaic weapons which were the only firearms at that time in my
possession.
The water-hole was situated on the edge of a large open pan, at the
back of a small hollow half beneath a low ledge of rock, and must have
been fed from an underground spring, as the Bushmen told me that it
never dried up.
As, on the evening in question, the moon was almost at the full, I
determined to watch the water during the early hours of the night, in
the hope of getting a shot at some animal at close quarters as it came
to drink, for there was a great deal of recent spoor in the pan of
rhinoceroses, buffaloes, zebras, and antelopes.
As soon, therefore, as my Kafirs had made a "scherm"[7] amongst some
mopani trees, just beyond the edge of the open ground, I took one of
my blankets and both my heavy elephant guns, and established myself on
the ledge just above the pool of water. Lying flat on my stomach, I was
completely hidden from the view of any animal coming towards me across
the open pan by the long coarse grass, which grew right up to the edge
of the rock ledge beneath which lay the pool of water.
[7] A semicircular hedge of thorn bushes within which we slept with
fires at our feet.
I had not long taken up my position when a small herd of buffaloes came
feeding up the valley behind me. They, however, got my wind when still
some distance away from the water, and ran off.
About half an hour later, I suddenly saw a rhinoceros coming towards me
across the open pan, and as the wind was now right, I thought he would
be sure to come to the water.
He was, however, very suspicious, and kept continually stopping and
turning sideways, apparently listening. In the brilliant moonlight I
had made him out to be a black rhinoceros almost as soon as I saw him,
for he held his head well up, whilst as a white rhinoceros walks along
its great square muzzle almost touches the ground. At last the great
beast seemed to make up its mind that no danger threatened it, for
after having stood quite still for some little time about fifty yards
away from me, it came on without any further hesitation and commenced
to drink at the pool beneath the ledge on which I was lying. Its head
was then hidden from me, but if I had held my old gun at arm's length I
could have touched it on the shoulder. Raising myself on my elbows, I
now lost no time in firing into the unsuspecting animal, the muzzle of
my gun almost touching it at the junction of the neck and the chest as
I pulled the trigger.
The loud report of my heavily charged elephant gun was answered by the
puffing snorts of the rhinoceros, which, although mortally wounded, had
strength enough to swing round and run about fifty yards across the
open ground before falling dead.
As it was still quite early, and the night was so gloriously fine,
I thought I would lie and watch for an hour or two longer to see if
anything else came to drink at the water.
I don't think the rhinoceros had been dead five minutes when a hyæna
came across the pan and went straight up to the carcase. This first
arrival was soon followed by others, and in less than half an hour
there were at least a dozen of these ravenous creatures assembled for
the prospective feast. All the time I was watching them they neither
howled nor laughed nor fought amongst themselves, but kept continually
walking round the dead rhinoceros, or watching whilst one or other
of their number attempted to tear the carcase open. This they always
attempted to do at the same place--in the flank just where the thigh
joins the belly. The soft, thick, spongy skin, however, resisted all
their efforts as long as I left them undisturbed, though I could hear
their teeth grating over its rough surface. Presently I heard a troop
of lions roaring in the distance, and as I thought they might be coming
to drink at the pool of water close to which I was lying all by myself
and without any kind of shelter, I stood up and shouted to my Kafirs to
come and cut up the rhinoceros, and bring some dry wood with them so
that we could make a fire near the carcase.
As my hungry boys came running up, the hyænas hastily retired; but
after we had opened the carcase of the rhinoceros and cut out the
heart and liver and some of the choicest pieces of meat and carried
them to our camp, they returned and feasted on what was left to their
heart's content. The noise they made during the remainder of the night,
howling, laughing, and cackling, was in strange contrast to their
silence when they first came to the carcase, but found themselves
unable to get at the meat, owing to the thickness of the hide by which
it was covered. The lions which I had heard roaring in the distance did
not come to drink at the pool near which we were encamped. They were
probably on their way to a much larger pool of water some miles to the
eastward.
Spotted hyænas are very noisy animals, and their eerie, mournful
howling is the commonest sound to break the silence of an African night.
The ordinary howl of the spotted hyæna commences with a long-drawn-out,
mournful moan, rising in cadence till it ends in a shriek, altogether
one of the weirdest sounds in nature. It is only rarely that one hears
hyænas laugh in the wilds of Africa, as these animals can be made to
do in the Zoological Gardens by tantalising them with a piece of meat
held just beyond their reach outside the bars of their cage. But when
a lot of hyænas have gathered together round the carcase of a large
animal, such as an elephant or a rhinoceros, and are feasting on it
undisturbed, the noises they make are most interesting to listen to.
They laugh, they shriek, they howl, and in addition they make all
kinds of gurgling, grunting, cackling noises, impossible to describe
accurately. Once, late one evening in 1873, I shot a white rhinoceros
cow that had a smallish calf, which, however, I thought was large
enough to fend for itself and get its own living. That night, after
having cut off all the best and fattest meat of the rhinoceros, we
camped some two hundred yards from the carcase, which lay in an open
valley close to a pool of water. Soon after dark the hyænas began to
collect for the feast, and whether the calf returned to its mother's
remains and the hyænas forthwith attacked it, or whether it resented
their presence and first attacked them, I do not know; but we first
heard it snorting and then squealing like a pig, and for half the night
it was rushing about, closely pursued by some of the hyænas, which, I
fancy, must have been hanging on to its ears and any other part they
could get hold of. Twice the young rhinoceros charged almost into
our camp, squealing lustily. Finally, the hyænas killed it, and had
left hardly anything of it the next morning. I shall never forget the
extraordinary noises these animals made that night.
Contrary to generally accepted ideas, I have not found hyænas when
killed to be more stinking animals than other carnivorous beasts. The
carcase of a freshly killed hyæna certainly does not smell as strongly
as that of a lion. I have often had the raw hide neck straps attached
to the ox yokes of my South African waggon eaten by hyænas at night
in Matabeleland, and to do this, these animals must have been right
amongst the oxen, gnawing the raw hide thongs within a few feet of
them, yet I never remember such a proceeding to have caused them
any alarm. On three occasions, two of which were on bright moonlight
nights, I actually saw hyænas right in amongst my oxen, and at first
thought they were dogs, as they were sniffing about on the ground. Two
of these hyænas I shot. On all these occasions my oxen did not pay the
very slightest attention to the hyænas, and I cannot therefore believe
that these animals have a more fetid or disagreeable smell than dogs.
I remember once shooting a hyæna in the Mababi country, close to the
permanent camp where my waggons stood all through the dry season of
1879. Several waggons belonging to Khama's people were standing close
by, and when Tinkarn, the headman of the party, saw the dead hyæna he
asked me if he and his people might have it. When I inquired what they
wanted it for, they answered "To eat," and averred that no other meat
obtainable in the African veld was equal to that of a fat hyæna. I
gave them the coveted carcase, and they ate it with every appearance
of satisfaction. These men were not low savages, but Christianised
Bechwanas, all of whom could read and write. They had plenty of good
antelope meat, too, at the time, so that they certainly ate the hyæna
from choice. I have, however, never come across any other tribe of
African natives who would willingly eat the flesh of a hyæna, their
objection to it being that it is that of an animal which eats the
bodies of human beings. This objection, however, would not apply to
the vast majority of hyænas that live in the wilderness, far from any
human habitations. Hyænas will attack and kill old and worn-out oxen
after they have become very weak; but I have never heard of a case
of an ox or a horse in good condition being interfered with by these
animals. They often kill the small native cows of South-East Africa,
however, always tearing open their udders, and then dragging out their
entrails through the wound thus made. I once started on a journey
down the northern bank of the central Zambesi in 1877, taking with me
four fine strong donkeys. Three of these donkeys were killed near the
mouth of the Kafukwe river by hyænas, and the fourth badly lacerated.
These donkeys were so completely devoured by what, judging from the
noise they made, must have been a regular pack of hyænas, that it was
impossible to tell how they had been killed. In 1882, when travelling
through the eastern part of Mashunaland beyond the Hanyani river, I had
a very fine large stallion donkey killed one night close to my camp
by a single hyæna. We heard the poor creature give a heart-rending
screaming cry when it was first seized, and ran to its assistance
at once, but when we got to it, it was already dead. Its powerful,
strong-jawed assailant had seized it between the hind-legs, torn a
great hole in its abdomen, and dragged out half its entrails in an
incredibly short space of time.
I have never measured or weighed any of the hyænas I have shot, but
Mr. Vaughan Kirby speaks of a very large one as having stood three
feet high at the shoulder, and I believe that such an animal must have
weighed more than 200 pounds.
Very little is known of the life-history of the spotted hyæna. Bushmen
have told me that the females give birth only to two whelps at a time.
These are usually born in one of the large holes excavated by the
African ant-eaters (_Aardvarks_). Although I have seen a great number
of hyænas on various moonlight nights, I have never seen a very young
or even a half-grown one accompanying its mother, and I cannot help
thinking, therefore, that young spotted hyænas remain in the burrows
where they are born, and are there fed by their parents until they are
at least eight or nine months old.