/S97 jf*&ZrL **>-*t Sfar ^ X ' \ ■ - • ' .

I fifes'. C0^%^ ■-■^^Zcf^TL^z^c^^c-

1 /& Ad^ j fyjr "&y $*-< ptrtfr : ■ ■ ?

I - -t. ^ '«^

'

-y

4^

^*b

. *

■^\Tl^t^x^^-(

THE BOOK OF THE LION

N.

;

THE

BOOK OF THE LION

By Sir ALFRED E. PEASE, Bart.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

i9J3

All rights reserved

TO THE HONOURABLE COLONEL

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

WHO, IN HIS OWN PERSON, HAS PROVED

THAT THE VERY BEST OF SPORTSMEN

MAY RENDER THE VERY BEST OF SERVICES

TO THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE WORLD

On Safari, B.E.A.,

l6tk October 1909.

To Sir Alfred E. Pease.

Dear Sir Alfred, — I am very much pleased that you are to write a book about lion-hunting. Very, very few people have an experience which better justifies such a book. It is the king of all sports when carried on as you have carried it on, especially when you gallop the lion, and then kill him on foot as he charges or prepares to charge as a lion thus rounded up will generally do. I am peculiarly pleased to have you write the book, for it was under your guidance that I first tried lion-hunting.

Sincerely yours,

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

Vll

INTRODUCTION

Almost the whole of this book was written several years ago. A great sorrow destroyed at that time all inclination to finish it. I have on re-reading my MS. decided to publish it, believing that after all it may be of use as well as of interest.

Lions and their ways have so often been written about that almost more courage is re- quired to take up the pen than a rifle in dealing with them. There are very nearly as many opinions on lions and their ways as there are naturalists and sportsmen. I may, and indeed hope to, arouse criticism and controversy, for it is only by inciting other observers to relate what they know that the truth as regards the life history and habits of animals can be arrived at. So that, though this book goes forth mainly for those who have not yet met the King of Beasts face to face in the African forest and the wilderness, it has been written in the hope that it may be read also by African naturalists, sportsmen, and explorers. Incidentally I desire that what is here set down may encourage the British public to insist that one little corner

IX

x INTRODUCTION

of our vast Empire shall remain a sanctuary for that royal creature which with our national modesty we have selected as the emblem of our own valour and magnanimity. Such a refuge now exists in the Game Reserves of the British East African Protectorate, but there are some settlers who press for the extermination of lions within the protected areas by every means, including poison and traps. None of these persons have farms or residences within the Reserves. The Southern Game Reserve (of B.E.A.) is unsuitable for settlement on account of the climate and the want of water, even were the available and suitable areas exhausted, an event which is remote. Few of those who complain of lions moving out of the Reserves into the settled parts have resided and farmed as near to the bound- aries of the sanctuary as the writer, and none he knows of have had more to do in repelling occasional sorties and in defending their live stock. There are millions of acres where noisy agitators such as these can settle in tame security. The few who clamour to be allowed to make short work of all the game for the sake of a passing profit in hides would be the loudest in their lamentations when all the game and all their sport had gone for ever. Those who have settled in such places knew the conditions and in many cases selected a game district deliberately, the very presence of game and wild beasts being an added, if not the chief, attraction. Sated

INTRODUCTION xi

themselves with excitement, they would deprive posterity of the pleasure they once had in the presence of the game.

As regards African game in general, as dis- tinct from the carnivora and beasts of prey, it must be remembered that extermination does not necessarily come about by the actual slaughter of a particular species. Mere disturbance or epidemic diseases may reduce the numbers of any sort of game to a point where indiscriminate shooting will complete very quickly its dis- appearance.

The author has talked to an old Vortrekker in the Orange River Colony who was one of the first to enter the country. The old Dutchman stretched out his hand over the lifeless plains and mountains, and said : " When I first came here the whole of this was covered with countless herds of game, of giraffe and of quagga; you could never believe that it could vanish in the lifetime of a man, but nothing remains ! "

He lamented the disappearance of the vast herds that roamed over the veldt, and indignantly denied that their extermination was due to the shooting and hide-hunting. He declared that quagga, hartebeest, wildebeest, and buck were present in such countless thousands that had all the settlers in the country shot ceaselessly throughout their lives they could not have wiped them out. This from my experience in other parts of Africa I believe to be true to this extent,

xii INTRODUCTION

namely, that it was not actual killing that in the beginning thinned their numbers seriously, but disturbance and hunting which caused the great herds to migrate to regions less suitable, or altogether unsuitable, for their existence — districts where food, water, climate, and other circumstances were against them and their young. Yet undoubtedly, as the game diminished and was driven farther afield, it was finally killed out by the meat and hide hunters. When any species becomes rare, it is the more sought after by trophy hunters, and the settler gave the old excuse that if he did not shoot, his neighbours would.

Many wild animals require vast space where they can follow the rains for the grass that springs up where thunderstorms have passed. Their condition depends on access to particular herbage, feeding-grounds, and rivers at certain seasons. When they can no longer visit these in peace and security they migrate elsewhere, and if compelled to revisit the old pastures and former haunts they return in ever- diminishing numbers. In South Africa as the game fled before the settlers the hunter and trekking Boer followed, driving it into countries less and less adapted to its nature. It is a melancholy story, and it is for Englishmen to prevent its repetition. It may be stated as an established principle, requiring no new proof, that for the preservation of African fauna very

INTRODUCTION xiii

extensive Reserves are necessary, and absolute freedom from molestation must be guaranteed to make protection really effective. There are some of the commonest kinds of African game which disappear quickly without much dis- turbance. The wildebeest will stand very little settlement in his neighbourhood and very little hunting. In a period of five years in British East Africa I have seen the wildebeest on the Kapiti Plains diminish from thousands to hun- dreds and from hundreds to twos and threes — yet I do not think twenty-five wildebeest were killed by settlers or hunters during these years in my immediate neighbourhood. My explana- tion of their rapid diminution is this. The grass remains green on the foot-hills round the Mua and Lukania mountains long after the plains are dried up. These pastures carried the game through the annual periods of drought and preserved it in abnormally rainless years. I have seen a large proportion of the vast herds of the Athi and Kapiti Plains at such times gathered together on this ground in such enormous masses that it is impossible to give any idea of their numbers. But this is the very ground that has been taken up by settlers, and though the colonists are not very numerous their presence is enough to scare away so wild and timid a species as the wildebeest. During the same period there was no very marked diminu- tion in the herds of zebra, impala, kongoni

xiv INTRODUCTION

(Coke's hartebeest), Grant's gazelle, Thomson's gazelle, and other game, which is much less sensitive to man's presence. All these latter species might in these dry seasons be seen feeding right up to the houses of the settlers and practically *with the cattle and tame ostriches. I never saw eland killed on or round my farm and never shot at one myself, but they too have gone from that part. I have always protested against the attempted extermination of any species of either big or small game.

Some years ago in a certain district of the Sudan an official urged me to kill all the hippo- potami I could. I ventured to dispute the wisdom of this policy of extermination, for there were no longer such numbers of hippo that they could do very extensive damage to the native crops, and before the advent of " civilized " rule the natives had been accustomed to great numbers of them and had to exert themselves to protect their crops. Never in the history of the country have the natives suffered so little from the depredations of hippo, nor lived in such security for themselves, their lands, and their markets. To destroy utterly every creature that does a little damage to man or calls out his energy in self-defence is a revolting policy, calculated to make the world a dull place and man a dull beast. The Nilotic native is all the better for having to struggle a little with the hippos, and could the reader watch him fighting

INTRODUCTION xv

the river-horse he would be quite sure the native enjoyed the sport. No one can blame an official for carrying out the home conception of civilization, and that idea seems to be to transform the natives of the Sudan into a squalid, mud-hoeing population similar to the Delta fellaheen. This kind of progress we have realized in certain spots of our own land, and having achieved it we stand horrified and bewildered at the spectacle. Western civilization raises monsters that neither human strength nor wit can overcome, whose depredations are a thousand- fold more terrible than those of the river-horse on the banks of the White Nile.

In Game Reserves of limited extent and in protected areas where the stock of game is limited there is some excuse, and perhaps at times a necessity, in reducing lions and beasts of prey as much as possible.

In the Transvaal such a policy can be defended, for beasts of prey would otherwise have rendered it almost hopeless to attempt to save some of the most interesting species of big game and antelopes from extinction. Owing to various causes, including rinderpest and the unscrupu- lous destruction of big game in the Reserves and on private farms * in the Transvaal during the South African War, the number of giraffe, buffalo, roan, sable, kudu, eland, and other

1 An African -'farm" may be, and often is, an estate extend- ing to 20,000 acres and upwards.

xvi INTRODUCTION

species were so depleted by 1903 that it would be no exaggeration to say of some of them that the survivors could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Since that date, under the wise, con- stant, and watchful care of Major J. Stevenson- Hamilton,1 the Game Warden, these species have not only been saved from extinction but have increased surprisingly. He has waged continuous war on lions and vermin. His record of carnivora destroyed is not complete from the earlier portion of the period 1903 to 1908, but during this period he with his assistants accounted for (in the Transvaal Eastern Game Reserve) 70 lions, 85 leopards, 29 cheetahs, 118 spotted hyaenas (crocuta), 4 brown hyaenas (brunea), and 151 wild dogs (Lycaon pictus).

In British East Africa there exists a vast region unsuited for colonization where the game and wild animals have been protected and remain in their original condition. All lovers of wild life and all haters of extermination should support the policy of retaining it as a natural sanctuary.

1 Vide Major J. Stevenson-Hamilton's Notes, p. 115.

CONTENTS

Dedication . Introduction

CHAP.

I. Lions and Lion Lands II. About Courage

III. Of the Courage of Lions

IV. Of Dangerous Game V. Of Sport — Of Terror

VI. The Lion

VII. The Distribution of Lions — Major Stevenson- Hamilton's Notes on South African Lions and Mr. A. L. Butler's Notes on Sudan Lions — The Destructiveness of Lions

VIII. Lion Cubs and Tame Lions

IX. The Haunts of Lions

X. The Lion's Voice — The Lion's Eye

XI. Some Ways of Lions — Charging Lions

XII. In the Lion's Jaws

XIII. The Food and Drink of Lions

2 xvii

PAGE V

ix

20 35 46

69

88

109 148 155 166 172 185 192

xviii CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

XIV. Lion-Hunting — Tracking Lions . . . 200

XV. Hunting Lions with Dogs — Hunting Lions

on Horseback .... 238

XVI. Night-Shooting — Lassoing Lions . ,. . 246

XVII. A Few Hints for Beginners . . . 254<

Appendix I. The Lion in Ancient History . 259

Appendix II. Rifles and Projectiles for Dan- gerous Game . . 267

Appendix III. Some Names for the Lion in

Africa . . .281

Appendix IV. Addendum to Chapter VII., re

Lions in British East Africa . . . 283

Index ...... 287

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A Somali Lion on a Zebra

The Quagga (now extinct)

A Lion Charge ....

Colonel Roosevelt killing his First Lion

An Algerian Lion

South African Lions

A Sacred Lion on Donkey-back .

Exorcizing a Camel

Defending an Ostrich Boma

Lion Roaring at Dawn

A Charging Lion ....

Lions let out of Cage

assur-bani-pal on horseback spearing llon

Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

24

40 96 112 140 150 154 160 168 176 262 262

The " Knock-out Target " presented by a Lion at, say Sixty Yards .....

Diagram to show how much of a Lion's Broadside presents a " Knock-out Target "

Sketch Map showing the Distribution of Lions King Hunting Lions ....

Wounded Lioness ..... Lion Seizing Chariot Wheel

268 268

PAGE

109 261 262 263

Diagrams (Appendix II.): Behaviour of Bullets, etc.

273 et seq.

XIX

THE BOOK OF THE LION

CHAPTER I

LIONS AND LION LANDS

In the years now gone I have wandered and resided in many parts of Africa — North, East, Equatorial, and South. It has been my good fortune to know many of the most experienced hunters and the best informed travellers and explorers. From my youth up I have loved travellers' tales ; the words may be a synonym for mendacities, yet with age I have become more rather than less credulous by reason of what my own eyes have seen, my own ears have heard, and my own hands have handled.

Among the men most familiar with Nature's haunts are many who never write, some scarcely talk, of their experiences or of the wonders they have seen. There have been, and are, numbers of explorers, hunters, prospectors, adventurers, and pioneers whose names you have never heard, who have seen and done far more than we who write and talk about these things. But the result of their experience is lost, and such know- ledge as posterity will possess will be due to

2 LIONS AND LION LANDS

those travellers and observers who have taken the trouble to record what they have seen. The generation to which I belong has seen Africa yield up her secrets; and the survivors of this generation, who have witnessed the passing away or transformation of many of the great game regions, alone can tell of what our genera- tion has done and seen, and which those who come after can never do or see again. Often the best writers, or at least those who are regarded by the reading public as the most instructed and authoritative on African animal life, are those who have had little or very limited experience of life in Africa. A large proportion of such authors are fond of generalizations, and some are very dogmatic in their assertions as regards the habits and ways of lions. One of my objects in giving the results of my own experience is to show that, in spite of what accepted authorities may state, lions do not always do this, and never do that. It will be my own fault if I cannot give a rational account of them and their conduct, in spite of the fact that the experiences of individual hunters must differ very considerably, and the conclusions that any one of them may come to, even from a large and varied experience, may be at fault.

Now amongst the good sportsmen I have met I have found some who considered the sport of hunting lions too dangerous to be justifiable ; others who held that there was little or no

ACQUIRED COURAGE 3

danger in their pursuit, and that the sport required neither courage nor skill ; others, and by no means the least experienced of travellers and hunters, who, though intensely keen to add lions to their trophies, have failed always and everywhere to meet them ; and others again who had neither inclination nor courage to try for them. To those who avoid lions from fear of them, I would say courage can be learnt — it is a subject for education. When a boy I was taken to the Crystal Palace and was fascinated by seeing a man hurl dozens of knives at another man standing against a door, till the latter's outline was so lined round with knives sticking deep into the wood that he was pinned fast against it, yet so dexterously had this been done that not a single one of the blades so much as cut his clothing or scratched his skin. Neither you nor I probably have the courage to stand that kind of fire, or to fire those kind of shots. Such courage as this comes from education and practice. Presently I shall discuss the question as to what courage is, and whether lions are courage- ous. But before I get to lions and chasing them I want to say something about the Land of the Lion. I have loved the chase not only for its own sake, but even more for where it has taken me. I possess such a store of varied and happy memories as I would not exchange for all the wealth and distinction the world can give. Yet in my youth I believed myself so hemmed in

4 LIONS AND LION LANDS

by circumstances and duties that I thought I should never break through such barriers into the real world beyond. Conventionalities which then looked like a granite wall I have discovered to be a delusion. I have learnt that human beings do not always understand the language in which duty calls, and that by the use of a little force a hole can be made through the thorny zariba of circumstances by which the poor, impounded creature, whether peasant or potentate, may escape to taste of life, of space, of air, and to see the earth, the sun, the moon, and stars as Heaven intended he should know them.

How often have men younger, stronger, wealthier, and with greater leisure than myself asked : " How do you manage to get away ; I cannot find time to do these things ? "

I can only reply : " I just book my passage and go." The thing is extremely simple — first determine to go, then take your ticket. I find I always do go when I have done this. As for expense, it need never be more costly to travel or reside in the wilds of Africa than to stay at home, whatever your condition in life may be.

To get there, a working man need not spend more than what he expends over drink and his holidays in a single year. I have met many a white man who has spent years there without as much money as he would spend in a few months at home, and others who lived a pleasant, healthy existence on what they earned by work,

FACILITIES FOR TRAVEL 5

by hunting, or by trade. Given a sufficiency of food, a comfortable bed, and an exquisite climate, life is more than tolerable to a liberty- loving man.

If those who have money to spend freely wish to know what it will cost them just to wander once in Africa, with every comfort and provision for camp life, I assert it can be easily done in practically every part of the Continent for £100 a month. The outfitters in many countries will contract to provide for you, in first-class style, for any expedition, for con- siderably less than this sum, including every conceivable necessity in the way of guides, servants, hunters, transport, tents, camp furniture, material, and supplies.

One obstacle that man's imagination sets up is the fancy that the bit of the world in which he lives cannot get on without him. It will some day, and however important he may consider himself, or the community about him may conceive him to be, his importance will dissolve faster than his bones.

Let the man who thinks wealth and social distinction or dissipations the chief prizes in his short life, stay at home — he would not be happy elsewhere. Yet such is even perverted twentieth- century man that he can, as a rule, revert to his primeval home among wild mountains, the wilderness, the jungle, or the bush, and enjoy as much as any one the sweetness of the simple life.

6 LIONS AND LION LANDS

As for myself, I love these months and years in Africa as I do the shade of palms and the sound of waters after the dust and toil of a desert march.

A single visit to the East, to our Colonies, or to any part of Africa is an eye-opener — it is eating of the fruit of the Tree of Life. There is a wonderful world just outside, and so accessible, with countless miles of rich territories where the thrifty and industrious could, with just a little cost to the State, live clean and happy lives, while we are passing law after law, and wasting our wealth in the futile attempt of making over forty millions of fast-breeding folk live com- fortably where there is barely room for half the number to exist in decent and healthy sur- roundings. You go out to Africa to see savages, and you find them only on your return. You will look on the urban populations of Europe with new eyes, and exclaim that the mass of barbarians live healthier and better lives, with fewer wants and less pain, in sweeter surroundings than these.

Your African savage is often picturesque and as often entertaining — he is also generally light- hearted and merry. You pay to see him at Olympia or the Crystal Palace. My European is neither very attractive nor very amusing, but I would also pay to see him in a Somali karia or a Dinka village. You imagine that in these dreadful towns, where you admit your race deteriorates physically, you have a monopoly

NATIVE INTELLIGENCE 7

of the intellectual side of human nature, and talk of the culture of civilization.

After years of travel and sojourn among many native races, Arabs, Berbers, Sudanese, Abyssin- ians, Somalis, Gallas, Nilotic and Bantu natives of Equatorial and South Africa, I maintain, looking at this array of black, brown, coffee, or paler-coloured peoples, even from the stand- point of intellect, that there is to be found in primitive man of primitive habits, if you know how to look for it, as much intelligence, wit, wisdom, quickness of thought, as among our teeming populations; and though their general capacity for exertion and responsibilities may be vastly inferior, they have an equal endowment at least of those qualities which make for rulers, generals, poets, and lawgivers.

For example, few individuals drawn from the British proletariat could conduct their defence in a court of justice, give their evidence, and cross-examine witnesses with the same skill and acumen as, say, the average unsophisticated kraal Kaffir. Not many of our novelists could jump up and relate a romance fitted to reach the popular fancy of the moment, improvised on the spot, accompanying the recital with an effective display of histrionic and elocutionary talent. This thousands of African and Asiatic natives can do. Could our singers compose their own ballads as they do ? or are the majority of the songs they sing less silly or inane than the

8 LIONS AND LION LANDS

native's chants about his women, and his heroes, or his camels and his cows ? With no art schools and no masters of deportment, natives have an artistic sense which often prompts them to the most effective forms in dress and drapery, the most telling arrangements in colour, and, in its unconscious simplicity, to the most perfect grace in action and pose of attitude.

Ah ! but they cannot draw and paint ! It is true that with " civilization " you find amongst those less oppressed with toil a yearning for artistic expression, and that this longing finds vent in attempts to describe feelings and emotions with pen in verse or in prose, and to transfer to canvas with a brush what it has caught in moments of reversion to nature, or in glimpses outside the actual environment. This kind of art is but a suggestion, a shadow, a memory of what our race and all races once possessed.

Account for this, please : with no box of tubes and no camel's-hair pencil, the lowest type of African aboriginal betrays the latent faculty of even your art in his quite extra- ordinary representations of men and animals in thousands of " rock paintings " on the walls of the caves and cliffs in which he goes to ground with the dassies or rock rabbits. Millions, moreover, of African natives are under the in- fluence of the religion of Islam, which discounten- ances the graven image or any likeness of anything in heaven or earth.

it

CIVILIZATION "

Why, before he loses the reality in the smoke and fog of "civilization," should the native want to paint, with words or colours, reminders and suggestions of the sunrises and the sunsets, of rivers, of lakes, of forests, and flowers, when all this is what he was born into and will live in, till in the midst of it he dies. Such poetry as the child of nature has in him flows from his heart to his lips ; he has no trouble, like laureates, with pens and scratchings out. He refers to knowledge in his head, instead of to bookshelves. As a rule his customs and laws are as suitable to his social and economical condition as ours to our " advanced " state. He can enjoy litigation without maintaining a predatory pro- fession or suffering from the law's delays. He is slow at learning our new doctrine, that the more laws and the more taxes there are, the pleasanter it is for everybody. He is so stupid about this that he will flv at times from British Colonies out of sheer terror of life by rule under a weight of laws and regulations, to take the chance of ill-usage in the Congo Free State.

It may be asserted that the large majority of those who stay at home and work in cities cannot shake themselves free from circum- stances which compel them to work there for the livelihood of their families or themselves, nor from responsibilities that are not to be abandoned without a sacrifice of duty. These are inspired by the creditable motives which

10 LIONS AND LION LANDS

impel a captain to " stick to his ship." Yet who, on reflection, can deny that myriads of lives are spent in drudgery or in nervous activity, with no real or proportionate advantage to the community, and in surroundings poisonous to the physical and moral welfare of the race. Could but one-half of the wasted energy be turned to work in the open air in other lands of ours, new and healthier ideas of life and happiness would spring up. But how are souls to be converted that grow up in an atmosphere of unwholesome ideals — souls that have come to regard the muddy or dusty pavements of towns, soot-begrimed buildings of cities, and artificial light, food, and pleasure, not only as the neces- sities but as the joys of existence ? How can such be made to see that the primitive man's winding jungle-paths, through a sunlit bush among birds and flowers and butterflies, lead to pleasanter working- places and to sweeter homes than their streets roaring with traffic and reeking with petrol fumes ?

In a crowded country it is numbers and confinement which make poverty and dirt. Take the wild boar from his forest and wall him up in a pigsty, and you will in time have, in the place of a brave, sagacious, active, and cleanly animal, a breed of measly-skinned, fat, soft, grunting, squealing beasts, fed on pig- wash, wallowing in filth, and liable to swine fever — Civilization.

THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT 11

Take the Briton and wall him up in towns, and in time . . . well, just look round and see if you have not something similar, and yet no more conscious than the sty-bred pig that there is anything wrong either with himself or his environment — nay, boasting that he is civilized, proud that he is a pig. Whilst millions of public money is forthcoming to maintain a wretched population on the verge of destitution in awful places, not one is ever voted to help our manhood and womanhood to live well-ordered, happy, wholesome lives in our Colonies or to get them there. It would be regarded as preposterous for the State to lend a deserving emigrant a five- pound note that he might achieve a manly independence. Yet the least-deserving " stay-at- home " is to be maintained and pensioned at vast cost out of the public purse.

Average man, if he can know content any- where, will find it in a climate sweet and pleasant to live in, where Old Mother Earth smiles on his labour and hands up to him his daily bread without much asking, with sufficient shelter wherein to sleep and take refuge from the heat. Does he want much more than to be endowed with an intelligence equal to his duties, the power to be happy when things go well, and to be brave in the days of adversity ? Add that touch of romance, of poetry, and of music which appeals, in its kind, to each race, and the universal gifts bestowed on mankind of natural affection

12 LIONS AND LION LANDS

and hope. Primitive man enjoys this much — can we better it ? As to whether his own peculiar terrors and miseries are greater than ours, who can say ? What have our millions to com- pensate them for the absence of all this ? It is a hard task which we have set ourselves, to teach the natives of Africa to acquire our restless discontent. We had once two Swahili servants for more than a year ; they both had the run of the kitchen, but never wanted more than their one meal of rice a day. When rice was not obtainable, the difficulty of feeding them was considerable ; bread and sardines were the only substitute they would accept, and they longed to get back to their rice as a Frenchman in the desert yearns for the flesh-pots of Paris. Yet as they had been brought up at a mission station they actually imagined they were civilized. Poor boys, how could they be with so few wants ? It was all imagination, for when my wife first asked, on engaging them, " What food do you eat ? " they replied, " We are Christians, we can eat anything."

I once introduced a Somali boy for the first time in his life to a locomotive engine and train. I knew a native too well to expect any sign of astonishment, — he does not give himself away like that, — but I asked him what he thought of it ; he replied simply, " The white man he can do all sorts of things, but he has got to die just the same as a Somali." This boy had come to me from

NATIVE PHILOSOPHY 13

his karia on the Toyo plains, in his white tobe, shield on arm and spear in hand ; he became my personal servant and accompanied me to Algeria, India, Abyssinia, and England. In the time I should have taken to acquire one language very imperfectly, this barbarian, without a soul to instruct him, unable to read a word, mastered, with no apparent effort, Arabic, Hindustani, Amharic, and English, and picked up a smat- tering of Harrari, Galla, and French. They see with sharper eyes, they hear with more sensitive ears, they grasp with more retentive memories — the result of " savage " education. In the eyes of Europeans they are all the more barbarians for this superiority. We think them savages; what do they think we are — filling up our lives with hurry and worry, and cudgelling our brains how we may increase the complexity of our short existence ?

Perhaps I have over-coloured my general sentiments in the foregoing remarks. After all, I am English, and therefore conform, outwardly at least, to the worship of our national fetish. I participate, with certain mental reservations, in the task of teaching the mass of mankind that it is not to relapse into primitive simplicity — it must progress, that is — it must raise its eyes to the great hub of Civilization, and if its motto be " Excelsior " the major part of humanity may eventually reach the ecstatic plane, where each civilized man may rise each morning by 3

14 LIONS AND LION LANDS

gaslight, gulp down tea and stale eggs by fog- light, put on his waistcoat with patterns on, seize on his umbrella, rush to a station, read his grey, pink, or green paper in a crowded com- partment, inhaling the breath of others diluted with subterranean fumes, splash through mud, elbow his way over greasy pavements to hail his motor-bus, spend his day at his work under dust- covered lights, in dingy holes, and at the end of his day return much as he came, to supper, quack medicines, and bed. Of course soap, whisky, braces, nail brushes, and many other Wants are thus created.

I remember a speech of Mr. Chamberlain's, when he urged the importance to the Empire of evoking Wants among African natives ; he wanted Kaffirs to want Wants — it is good for Trade, and so good for the Empire. In fact, the African native must be made to want Wants ; most of all, he must be made to want work. Never fear, he will want his wants all in good time. If we are zealous enough we can hoist him up to our heavenly plane in our patent ascenseur a little quicker than he would reach it if he is left to plod his weary way up the long staircase by which we ourselves have climbed.

Sometimes as I have sat under the clean and gentle moon, gazed into the camp fire or blue seas, or looked over sunny plains and purple hills, the dreadful vision has arisen of the civilized crowd at its work, at its luncheons, on

IMAGINATION 15

its 'buses, in its trams, trains, and tubes, and then the image has passed before me of the Bedawi in their desert, the Somal in their bush, the Kaffirs in their mountain kloofs, and I have thought, " Better be any one of these than one of that crowd." But sympathy and pity are wasted, success and happiness are measured by the standard of the corner you are born into and of the community you live amongst. Verily if man were born in hell he would mistake it for heaven. Man's imagination can work miracles. The crowd's smoke-filled chest swells, its sooty nostril dilates, its dusty-cornered eye gleams with the pride of its race. It fights its country's battles in the newspapers, it is an athlete watch- ing football, it is a "sportsman " when bookies are bawling the odds or when at night it gets " all the winners." It lives by proxy, its romance is in shilling dreadfuls, its travels and adventures in electric theatres. Yet who dare say that its life is not sweet. Happiness is provided for man in the most awful surroundings where there is love and duty done. But the great undertaking of the day is the building up of our Empire. We must have more crowds, more smoke, more trams, trains, and tubes, more iron bridges and overhead wires, more hoarding advertisements in our fields, so that we may know where to get lung tonic and the sort of soap to make the dirt drop out, more sewers and refuse heaps. We must get more

16 LIONS AND LION LANDS

paper and broken bottles in the country, more rivers running ink, and our lanes well fenced with barbed wire and railway sleepers to keep us from straying off the cinder footpaths on to the fields strewn with pieces of linoleum, tins, and night-soil. We must have more factories and mills, or Germany will have as many as we have. And all the time we must educate our Colonies to progress, and want the waistcoats with patterns, and the soap which makes the dirt drop out, and more of everything we have. In Egypt we must get the Arabs and natives to give up their senseless wandering about with tents and camels without any idea of growing cotton ; they must settle down along the Nile, where our clever engineers will make more mud for them, even if they have to bring the water from Central Africa and harness waterfalls ; then they will live in mud houses along mud roads, by muddy canals, and hoe mud patches in muddy clothes, and learn to want whisky and liver pills, bowler hats and bicycles, and things in time, and breed more mud-hoers. So governments will raise more revenue, and cotton- spinners, soap-boilers, and hoe-makers will get more wealth, and every one will be better off, and want more and more things, and so forth and so on, till we reach the Brummagem millennium. The nation which does this the fastest will be the greatest, and we mean to be the first in this race. Instead of the benighted barbarian watching his wealth wander-

REVERSION / 17

ing on four legs over desert, prairie, and veldt, we shall see the transfigured being seated at a roller desk and examining his pass-book under a gas jet ; instead of gazing in stupid meditation at purple shadows creeping up red mountains, and floods of emerald, rose, and violet stealing over golden plains, he will with educated eyes look on the unchanging beauty of landscapes in oil, in rich gilt frames, without having to go out of doors. Yet perhaps the new and rather feeble cry of " Back to the land " even in the form of pigsty in a potato patch (when millions of acres in the Empire can be had at a half- penny each), is an indication that the toiling millions in their smoky dens are unconsciously looking back in the direction of a former and more primitive state. I suppose some of them, if not ready to change places with the Arab in his tent or the Kaffir in his kraal, might not turn with contempt from the suggestion of a settler's life on the veldt.

When I resided in Algeria I knew of a French general, born an Arab of the tents in the northern Sahara, who entered the army through the native ranks, obtained promotion, and then naturalization which qualified him for the superior grades, which he attained to, one after the other, till he was a general of a division. He became intensely civilized according to Western ideas ; he had the entre to the best European society, frequented the salons and cercles of

18 LIONS AND LION LANDS

Paris, where he had his hotel, and possessed as well a chateau in the country. The day came when the rule of age retired him from military service. What did he do ? He had lived two existences ; the last as good as the West could give. Off with his hideous European coat, collar, cuffs, top hat, and trousers, one kick and his patent leather boots, with the dust of the West, were off his feet, and into the burnous once more ! When last I heard of him he was among his camels and his flocks in the douar of his tribe in that desert which had called him back. I often think of him as sitting at the door of his tent, reflecting on Western ideas of happiness and of what we call success, the horizon of which retreats as it is approached, just as surely as the one of the great desert on which he gazes.

This may seem a strange digression from the track of my lions, but the idea in my head was that in lion lands there are other things to see and think over besides the game. Tough and curious old ideas which will bite the dust there, new thoughts to be born in lion haunts, both quite worth a chase or at least to be examined through a telescope at a safe distance. Let those who denounce my heresies be generous, for mine is the losing cause.

Have I not seen already the dawn of your civilization on the Dark Continent ? The green veldt is being ploughed to give you what you want, the useless beasts and birds are fast being

THE DAWN IN AFRICA 19

wiped away, the primeval forests echo to the axe, men begin to hoe mud on shadeless flats, the once limpid streams are already running ink, or milky liquid from mines and slimes, Kaffirs wear bowler hats, trousers, and yellow boots. The great " Want " has arrived, the parapher- nalia of Europe is marching in, and there soon will be plenty of billets for doctors and clergy, and dentists and lawyers. By the time that our lion has passed away to remain but the emblem of valour, you will have in some of the more favoured regions even black M.P.'s, as well as the lunatic asylums, sewage-pumping stations, crematoriums, dogs' homes (in every sense), processions of the unemployed, copper- coloured suffragettes, and the native will have his gorgonzola teeth and all the rest of it.

CHAPTER II

ABOUT COURAGE

Emblem of valour ! These words bring me back to my dissertation on courage. I tried to show that courage is sometimes obtained by education and training. To recognize this is to give any of us who are cowards, hope. I cannot, however, call to mind a single instance of ever witnessing a big-game hunter showing the white feather when faced with danger.

I never envied the man, not that I ever met him, who " did not know what fear is." I know dozens who would face anything in the way of a decent terror, very calmly, and "take it on" either for fun or as duty, or for practice, or with some other excuse, or without any at all. But the poor fellow who knows no fear is poor indeed. Fear is the very essence of pleasure in sport ; the real sport begins when there is the excuse to feel afraid. In an old volume of Punch you will find a picture by du Mauri er (I think), where a German has realized the bearing of this paradox. He has just been instructed by a British sports- man in the mysteries of sport, and exclaims, " Ach ! I zee den dat it is ze tanger dat you do

ao

FEAR, AN ELEMENT OF SPORT 21

like ! You should shoot mit me ; ze oder day I

shoot mine brudder in ze schtomak." The spice

in the tamer amusements of stalking antelopes,

deer, goats, and sheep is the dread of being

detected and the fear of missing. This is but

an imitative fear, yet I can remember when it

seemed a very real one, and yielded all those

pleasing sensations of trembling and breathless-

ness (known as " buck fever ") which result

from the real article, and also will now, on

occasion, make my heart thump against my

ribs. The additional joy in approaching lions,

buffalo, or any other dangerous animals is in

proportion to your fear of them, or there would

be little more pleasure in stopping a lion than

in rolling a jackal over. The fun in riding down

a jackal is that you have to gallop at top speed

on a line unknown, over ground which may or

may not be sprinkled with ant-heaps, holes, and

cracks, crossed by nullahs and dongas, and that

you have at the crisis, when shooting, to leave

your reins and trust to \our flying horse; it is

this element of danger and your fear of it which

adds to the enjoyment and excitement of the

pursuit. And so in fox-hunting, though a man

may love the science of hunting and hound

work, if he does not realize the chances he is

taking when he rides straight in a screaming run,

he knows not the full joys of defeated fears, of

pride of horse, and of surviving performances

he would not attempt save when the blood of

22 ABOUT COURAGE

horse and man is " up." The " man who knows not fear " could not enjoy a run with hounds nor a fight with a lion like the man who, though he knows fear, does not show it. He who has never been frightened by a lion must have missed half the sport of lion-hunting. Where there is no fear there can be no courage.

The old meaning of " magnanimous " was brave as well as generous. In confirmation of this statement I refer to Johnson's Dictionary, and to a quotation from Milton therein under the head of " Lion " : ' " The Fiercest and most Magnanimous of four-footed beasts." I pre- sume " four-footed " enters into this definition so as not to exclude a possible specimen of the human biped, otherwise I cannot account for this qualification and limitation. Milton was expressing a mere platitude when he wrote this, and accepting the general opinion of mankind, based on its experience of this particular kind of beast through the ages. The lion has always stood as the emblem of concentrated courage and terrific power.

If you would flatter a king, you say he is " lion-hearted " ; if a man, that he is as " brave as a lion." If a nation desires to impress the world at large without any false modesty it assumes this great cat as its badge, and when so many nations have taken the lion as their pet symbol that the thing begins to get monotonous, the rest fall back on the eagle or bear.

LUDOLPHUS AND NATURAL HISTORY 23

In Africa the proudest title of the Emperor of Ethiopia is M The Conquering Lion of Judah," and the lion is the badge of Abyssinia. Magna- nimity in our modern sense has so long been ascribed to the lion that he will remain for ever emblematic of this virtue also, just as great men who, to those who know them least intimately, or when they have passed out of sight, become endowed with sublime attributes. Death oft is the portal to immortal fame, or the manner of dying is. Crimes or eccentricities are all for- gotten or forgiven if a man dies nobly, whether it be a king on a scaffold or a soldier in the Sudan. The lion dies well, and when the earth no longer sees or hears him, he will be figured with an aureole around his head.

In the learned Job Ludolphus's History of Ethiopia, printed in 1684, there are some most charming and most inaccurate descriptions of Abyssinian beasts and birds. In his chapter " Of Four-footed Beasts," he remarks that " As for Wild Beasts, Abyssinia breeds more and more bulkie than any other region of which we shall give a short account, beginning from those which appear most monstrous in their creation." He then goes on to tell us about " such massie creatures " as elephants, " which banquet as upon grass on trees about the bigness of cherry- trees " ; about their " horns of which the ivory is made, which grow out of the head and not out of the jaws, and besides that they only adorn

24 ABOUT COURAGE

the brows of the males, the females, like our does, have none at all " ; he describes a female ele- phant with her " cubb," and how the elephant, " if he be threatened with cudgels, hides his probosces under his belly, and goes away braying, for he is sensible it may be easily chopped off : the extream parts of it being very nervous and tender, which causes him to be afraid of hard blows," and much more of the like. After giving a most excellent description of the zecora (Grevy's zebra), he turns to the lion and says of him : " The lyon, tho' he excel in fierceness and cruelty all the rest of the wild beasts, yet he shews a certain kind of magnanimous respect of man. For he never injures, unless he be ready to famish so that he do not betrav his own fear " ; and then our friend Job refers the reader to Solinus, who " allows them many marks of clemency : they sooner assail men than women ; they never kill infants, unless pinched with hunger." Solinus indeed seems very generous, but would, in our day, have given grave offence to the suffragettes, and being no doubt a good sportsman who avoided shooting cheepers with his bow and arrow, " allowed " the lion the same sporting instincts. In my search after examples of leonine magnanimity, I remembered the fore- going authority. Personally, I have no par- ticular experience confirming their title to this virtue, beyond a common one of their thought- fulness in getting out of my way when their

Pi

" MARKS OF CLEMENCY " 25

presence might be inconvenient. I am less generous than Solinus, and can only allow that, like human beasts, they are more magnanimous after than immediately before dinner.

In Holy Writ the lion appears with " marks of clemency." Daniel in their den must have perceived them. There is also some evidence of their forbearance in the very picturesque story of the Disobedient Prophet. You will remember how the old prophet of Bethel lied unto the prophet who came with his message riding on his ass from Judah, and how he was slain by a lion in the path because he had been so simple as to believe the word of the man of God from Bethel. The story tells how that, after he had been pulled off his ass and killed, some men coming along the Bethel road saw the body and the lion standing by it, and that they ran back and told the liar prophet at Bethel what they had seen, whereupon he bid his sons saddle his ass and then rode off down the track and came upon the body of the other prophet with the lion still standing by it, and also the donkey untouched. Now this lion allowed the old prophet to pick up the body, to fasten it on to the ass, and to take it back to Bethel, where he buried it in his own grave, exclaiming repeatedly at the funeral, " Alas ! my brother ! : and requesting his sons to put his bones beside his bones when he died. The whole tale as told in the Bible is very graphic,

26 ABOUT COURAGE

though the moral is a little obscure. However, you cannot expect a higher tone of morality than the highest conception of it that may exist at any particular period of the world's history.

I have known several cases, some of which will be cited later, where by day and night lions have pulled men off horses and carried them off, but they were young laymen on horses, and not old prophets on donkeys. On the whole, judging from Scriptural examples, the lion shows more traces of magnanimity than man.

Look at the story of the valiant Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, whose valour is instanced in killing a lion in a pit in time of snow. I have tried to picture the deed, yet cannot escape from the impression that the circumstances were on the whole very favourable to the safety of Benaiah. It may be that the valour was displayed in going out in time of snow. What a chance ! Just imagine Benaiah coming out of his hut in the early morning with snow on the ground, and coming on the spoor ; his halt to examine it, his eyes lighting up as with his finger on his lip he exclaims to himself, " Lion I not hyaena ! " then running back for his spear and tracking the beast without any trouble up the mountain, and at last, looking gingerly over the edge of the rock hole and seeing the half- frozen lion up to his neck in snow right in the bottom at his mercy. The chance of a lifetime ! Few men have had such an opportunity, and few

WHAT IS COURAGE ? 27

lions can have had a worse time of it than Benaiah's.

There are men to-day ready to depose the King of Beasts from his throne. I understand that Livingstone was one of the first to foment this insurrection, and that he declared the lion to be mean and cowardly, after one had bitten his arm. I cannot understand why he en- deavoured to pull down the lion from off his pedestal, for from his own account of being carried off by a lion we are even led to suppose that he derived some enjoyment from it.

Among the most recent authors, the Right Hon. Winston Churchill, M.P., writes brilliantly yet somewhat slightingly of them, but he might change his opinion on nearer acquaintance.

Has the lion courage ? What is courage ? I had a Somali camel man well scarred with tooth and claw of lion. One day when alone in the bush tending horses at pasture he saw one of them attacked by a big lion. With no gallery to applaud and only a horse-hide to salvage, with just a spear in his hand, he went straight in and fought a duel to the death with the lion. Maimed and bleeding he issued victori- ous from the combat, leaving the great yellow carcass of his foe beside that of the pony. Did this boy display courage ?

Listen to what he replies to my wife when she asks him why he fought trie lion, and whether he was not afraid of being killed : —

28 ABOUT COURAGE

" Yes, I was very frightened, but I was still more frightened of what they would say in my karia if I went back, if I had let a lion kill the horse and done nothing."

Once in the Gadabursi country a Somali boy, who acted as syce to my second pony, was leading his charge at the tail of our caravan, We camped that afternoon about five o'clock, and when the ponies should have been coming in from feeding at sundown I looked outside the zariba for my white pony and could not see him. I called the headman. " Adan, where is my Fraskiad ? "

" Wery bad nooze," replied Adan, who spoke English, but was shaky about his pronouns. Lions kill you."

Nonsense," said I ; " where is the syce ? " It is here but too much frightened," was the answer.

My syce appeared, looking very shamefaced. His story ran that as he was leading the pony some little way behind the last string of camels, two lions followed him, and after a short time both sprang on to the pony and pulled him down; that he had then run away, but after a while recollected that there might be a row if he turned up without the pony's halter (the halter was a grass one, worth about twopence), so he had gone back. The lions were still there by the dead pony, but he took the halter off and left the lions near the body.

44

44 44

N

BRAVE SOMALIS 29

I was chaffed by my companions for believing the boy, but told him to bring me the halter. He brought it, blood-stained, as it would be likely to be if the pony was killed in the usual way.

An inspection of the scene the next day gave us conclusive evidence of the truth of the boy's account of the end of my little Fraskiad. In this case too the native was more afraid of something else than of lions, which sounds as if I was a perfect terror to my men, when all the time he was only thinking to himself that his honour and his life were rolled in one, and take honour from him and his life was done. Perhaps some Somali bard had taught him this lesson, but more likely not. There have been many instances of natives laying down their lives for their white masters.

I knew a Somali who without so much as a stick in his hand saved Lord Delamere's life with his bare hands. Lord Delamere was down under a wounded lion which had already broken one of Lord Delamere's legs and was crunching it in his jaws. The boy seized the lion's head on both sides, and tugged at him till he dropped his victim and turned and terribly mauled the deliverer. This lion was dispatched by the Somalis the next day, and Lord Delamere set his own broken leg and nursed himself and his boy back to health, if not to soundness of limb. Lord Delamere goes slightly lame, and the boy 4

-i i ^- .

30 ABOUT COURAGE

is maimed for life, but received a well-deserved pension from the man he saved.

Now a Somali knows well enough what he is doing, and must have some strong motive in courting death to save his sahib's life. I credit him with the same quick resolution to play the man which so often distinguishes a European.

A year or so after this event I met in Somali - land an Englishman named Marshall, who had just had his shikari killed by a lion at Silo. If my memory serves me right, Marshall was carrying a loaded single-barrelled rifle, and his shikari his second rifle. Marshall was in his shirt without a jacket and had no cartridges, his shikari was carrying the ammunition for both weapons ; they saw a lioness slink into a bush, and then Marshall did a thing that only rash youth would do. Without getting his shikari close up to him or taking a supply of ammunition he fired straight into the bush where he had seen the lioness disappear, just as if she had been a rabbit at home. Out she came like a flash of lightning, straight for the shikari, which was the first thing she saw, rolled him over, and seized him. Marshall ran up with his empty rifle and belaboured her head with the barrel of his gun until she dropped the man ; then, instead of turning on Marshall according to the rules of the game, she made off. In this case the sahib risked his life to save his black boy, unfortunately in vain. Yet fortune very often favours the brave.

MR. WILLIAMS' ADVENTURE 31

Here is another example of the cool behaviour of a native and of wonderful presence of mind. This incident, which occurred in June 1909, I will give in the words of Mr. H. Williams, the party chiefly concerned : —

"Nairobi, July 1.

"Mr. Selous and I had joined Mr. M'Millan, but on June 8 I was out alone, having only my two gun-bearers with me, when I saw a lion on the right, about 300 yards away. He was prowling along, and apparently did not notice me, but I could see by the swish of his tail that he was an angry beast. I put up my hand as a signal to my head gun-bearer to come up with a spare rifle, and together we worked closer and closer to the lion. The beast seemed to have no intention of stopping, so I struck one hand on the back of the other. The lion stopped and faced me, probably revolving the question of attack, whilst I, for my part, cogitated as to whether I should shoot or endeavour to get a bit closer. The lion seemed to decide upon retreat, for he turned suddenly and trotted away. I fired both barrels of my *450 at him, one shot reaching him in the flank. It was only a slight flesh wound, but it paralysed him for the moment, and he sat down on his haunches like a dog. After a few minutes he got up and went into a bit of open bush.

" Not knowing what state the brute might be

32 ABOUT COURAGE

in, I made for the big open patch on my left front, hoping to get a better sight of him. The lion, however, had been watching me from his retreat, and at 200 yards distance he sprang out of the bush and came straight for me at a terrifying pace. I waited until he was within 60 yards, and then let him have both barrels. One shot missed him, but the other lodged in the fleshy part of his shoulder. The only effect was to infuriate him more than ever, and I now thought myself a dead man, for there was no time to reload, and the gun-bearer was not actually in reach with the other rifle. I turned and made for a bush at my right rear, hoping the beast would rush past me and give me time to reload ; but it was hopeless, and, turning sharply round, I stood my ground.

" It was a terrifying sight — the brute's jaws already open to seize me by my left shoulder and breast — but with the courage born of despair I raised my rifle in both hands and struck him across the side of the head. Almost simul- taneously he ducked and seized me by the right leg, shaking me from side to side as though I had been a rat. There is no need to describe what I felt at this moment. Suffice it to say that my gun-bearer — -the pluckiest creature, black or white, that I have ever read of — came up whilst the lion was actually mauling me, shoved the rifle he carried down to me and asked me how to turn the safety catch. I had sufficient

A GUN-BEARER'S COURAGE 33

presence of mind to be able to explain in a second, and the gun-bearer fired. The lion left me and rushed into a bush 5 yards away, giving me time to put two cartridges in my rifle whilst still on the ground.

" Raising myself to fire, I saw that the lion was in the act to spring. I fired off both barrels from my hip at his head, the " boy " firing at the same time, and the brute rolled over dead. I fell back again, and for a few moments half-swooned, for I had lost a lot of blood ; but as soon as the second gun-bearer had come up (no gun with him), I sent him off to find camp and bring back some men to carry me in. With some dressing which I had in my cartridge bag I tried to staunch the bleeding, but could do very little in this way. The muscles were torn open, an artery had burst, and the wounds were everywhere so deep. For an hour I lay there, and then half the camp turned up, and I was carried in on a bed. I shall never forget the agony of that journey. On reaching camp, Mr. Selous and Mr. M'Millan dressed the wounds as well as they could, but that night my tempera- ture was over 105°.

u On the afternoon of the next day — the 9th — I left camp with a man — Judd — in charge of me, and, after three days' travel by hand porterage, I got to Londiani, on the railway, and arrived at Nairobi on the 14th. My leg seemed to be bursting all the time, and the blood was draining

84 ABOUT COURAGE

away. I would have given anything for some morphia. On being brought into hospital, how- ever, I experienced all the ease and comfort which a first-class doctor and skilful nursing were able to afford."

The greater the fear, the greater is the courage of deeds like these. Courage is the fear of being afraid. A brave deed may be deliberate or impulsive, it may be thoughtless or reckless or carefully premeditated, it is as often dared from the dread of what a man will think of himself as from alarm at what others may think of him. Any other kind of courage is not to be over admired. It is no particular credit to an individual to possess a quality he has been endowed with in common not only with most of his own species, but with dogs and poultry. Mere bravery of the bravest man is matched by the bravery of brutes. The soldier oft repulsed, who, with bleeding wounds, returns to the charge and fights till his eye dims with death, is as brave but not braver than the gored bulldog tossed high in the air, returning to the conflict time after time, till he has seized his enemy by the nose, and then never losing his hold until he is dashed to death or stunned with blows. By the display of this quality alone man may attain to the rank of a dog.1

1 This illustration is borrowed from Dymond's essays-

CHAPTER III

OF THE COURAGE OF LIONS

General Sir Frederick Lugard, having ex- perience of both tigers and lions, maintains the right of the lion to his title of King of Beasts. In support of his view of the superior majesty of the lion he asserts that, unlike the tiger, he " courts no concealment, shirks no encounter, and scorns to run."

I do not dispute his right to his title or his superior majesty, but in the sentence quoted I perceive an over-statement, for though a lion will often stand and regard you steadily when you meet him by day, he will oftener make off at the first sight of you. I should also say he prefers to conceal himself, and when suddenly disturbed generally goes off, and frequently at a gallop. On the other hand, I have seen lions under fire walk off slowly in the most leisurely and dignified manner, halting now and again to look with knitted brows at the pigmies pumping lead at him. Not long ago I was riding through a patch of straggling bush, when two lions got up 200 yards ahead of me ; they never stopped to look for a second, but went off as fast as they

35

36 OF THE COURAGE OF LIONS

could. Before I had dismounted and run to a place where I could get a view of them they were 400 or 500 yards away, both going in different directions at a steady gallop like two very long-tailed giant mastiffs. As I watched I saw three more lions jump up, and off they went too, without casting a glance in my direc- tion, though my bullets were chasing them. All these certainly shirked an encounter. Yet the first lions I ever saw in Africa were a group of five or six old ones under a tree larger than any near it in the thorn forest. I came in sight of them at 60 yards, and two of them charged me at sight — but then I had been tracking them for several hours, which makes all the difference. One of these sheered off when I hurriedly fired my first barrel at the leading one, this bullet went " over" at 40 yards, and I had just time to get my second barrel off at 13 yards. My shot sent up a blinding shower of earth into his lowered face, which turned him just enough for him to brush past my shikari ; he then whipped round and " came " again. Meanwhile my cool Midgan shikari had put my second rifle into my hand, and I bowled him over ; though mortally wounded with one ball and trailing a broken leg, I lost him. For some three hours I tracked him fast and easily, when my boy said it was useless, as he would probably never stop till night. I had given up hope of catching him, and what with six hours tracking in the

THE LION'S DISPOSITION 37

broiling sun, and my experience with the brute, I found my ardour cooled, but I said to my boy we will go on another half-hour. I was sick of carrying my 10-bore and handed it to him full- cock, and took my Mannlicher, telling him to follow the track, and I trudged wearily on some 10 yards behind. A few minutes after this we went through a patch of high grass under a big tree, and my shikari stepped right on to the lion. This is what I saw : a great, big, bloody lion on his hind-legs, my boy throwing up my big gun to defend himself — the gun held at arm's length going off and the recoil driving the butt into my boy's mouth — my boy falling flat on his back — a dense cloud of smoke (for it was black powder in those days), and then nothing else for a second — then the tail of a flying lion disappearing in thick bush 100 yards away, and " so back to camp," — a day I remember, with some of the lessons it taught me. There is no " always do " and " never do " about lions, but in my own experience lions will, in nine cases out of ten, at the very least, get away from you if they think they can escape observation or trouble. Most of them have an aversion to man's presence in the daytime, an aversion only overcome, as a rule, by great hunger or unusual nastiness of disposition ; and in disposition they vary almost as much as dogs. But I cannot see that this detracts from their character for courage, as some consider it does. Let us suppose

38 OF THE COURAGE OF LIONS

that the reader has won the V.C. and is sitting on his lawn under a spreading elm in the heat of a summer's day, and with eyes half closed is reflecting on what he has had for lunch or is going to have for dinner, when suddenly he catches sight of a lion strolling towards him. Would you not, brave reader, shin up the tree or dive into the house by the nearest window ? Livingstone and Co. might shout " Coward ! " at you. They would, if logical, write you down " Coward " too, if when familiar with the sickly stench of lions a decided whiff of the horrid odour reached your nostrils, you closed your book and, with a hasty look round, made off, double-quick, to the side door. If you now went to your gun cupboard, and loaded your rifle and watched your opportunity and shot the unwelcome disturber of your peace when he was looking another way, they would if consistent dub you " mean " as well as cowardly, for, to quote Mr. Winston Churchill, " such are the habits of this cowardly and wicked animal." In fairness however, to Mr. Winston Churchill, I must say he allows that, when pursued, " the naturally mild disposition of the lion becomes embittered," and " finally, when every attempt at peaceful persuasion has failed, he pulls up abruptly and offers battle. Once he has done this he will run no more." The description of what follows is so well done, I must give a further extract : — " He means to fight, and fight to the death.

A NASTY LION 89

He means to charge home, and when a lion, maddened with the agony of a bullet wound, distressed by long and hard pursuit, or most of all a lioness, in defence of her cubs, is definitely committed to the charge, death is the only possible conclusion. Broken limbs, broken jaws, a body raked from end to end, lungs pierced through and through, entrails torn and protrud- ing— none of these count. It must be death — instant and utter for the lion or down goes the man, mauled by septic claws and fetid teeth, crushed and crunched and poisoned afterwards to make doubly sure."

In June 1909 I had an example of how necessary it is to kill instantly a charging lion. Near the house I owned on the Mua Hills is a long ridge running down towards the plains ; on the south side of this ridge is a thick covert stretching a mile along the slope beneath fine rocks and boulders. On this ridge are usually countless numbers of kongoni (Coke's hartebeest), zebra, antelopes, and gazelles of various kinds. At certain times of the year lions kill round here almost every night; sometimes they kill in full view of the house in broad daylight. By day they lie hidden in the thickest parts of the bush. We used to know they were there, we heard them grunting or roaring at, and just before, dawn, while at breakfast we saw the vultures and white-necked crows circling over the kills of the night. I often went to the rocks and sat there searching

40 OF THE COURAGE OF LIONS

the bush with my glass, on the chance of seeing the lions moving into a shady lair for the day, or sent a boy to watch. I sometimes wandered in the bush peering into the thick places with rifle cocked, but generally found this a very unprofitable amusement.

On the 20th June 1909, after several days' watching by myself, I got my friend, Mr. R. Allsopp, and my neighbour, Mr. H. D. Hill, to give me a hand and see if we could not get rid of some of these lions, for they had become a nuisance, being very near the house, frequenting the main path to it, making it jumpy for every one of us when taking this track home at night- fall, and endangering the lives of our boys and horses when sent to water, morning and evening. The previous day one of them had killed a kongoni in sight of the house at dawn, and All- sopp and I had come close on to them when poking about in the bush. On the day in question we determined to try and drive the whole of the bush towards the plain. With such force of boys and dogs as we could muster, I went with my wife and daughter and our ponies along the crest of the ridge above the bush, and took up a position from whence we could scan the whole of the surrounding plains. Hill, Allsopp, men and dogs started the drive. We heard their shouts and watched for some time the impala, kongoni, zebra, and "granties" pouring out of the covert, also a hyaena lobbing away, now and again

mml

A Lion Charge.

To face p. 40.

o_

THE PURSUIT 41

twisting his hideous head round to look back. Then I saw two big lions slouching along across open spots in the bush and slanting up the hill. Before I could get to my horse they were crossing the ridge about a quarter of a mile off, and by the time I was in the saddle and my horse going, they were out of sight. A short gallop brought me into view of them, indeed I had taken a short cut that put me nearer to them than I wanted to be, but they paid little attention. The smaller of them broke into a gallop and took a long lead, the larger trotted steadily forward on the same line, a great hulking brute which shook all over as he went along. The line was across ridges and wide bush-sprinkled valleys. As we rose the first hillside out of the first valley at a canter, with the heavy lion 150 yards on my left, 1 fired a shot from my Mannlicher in the hope of bringing him to a stand. He turned and stood for a moment with a diabolical scowl on his countenance, back went his ears, up went his tail as he walked about three paces towards where I had reined up ; before he had begun to trot, I was in full flight up the hill, knowing he meant business. He coursed like a greyhound but gave it up in less than a hundred yards — he was too fat for that game — and he resumed his line at a steady trot and paid me no more attention. I now kept 200 yards to his right, parallel with him down the slope into the next valley ; on reaching the donga

42 OF THE COURAGE OF LIONS

in the bottom he went into a tiny reed bed and lay down out of sight. I now halted my horse at 120 yards or so, and waited for some of the others to come up. After what seemed a long dose of sentry-go, my gun-bearer on foot with my 10-bore, and Hill and Allsopp on the ladies' ponies, arrived on the scene. Hill carried a '404 Jefferey cordite rifle, Allsopp a double-barrelled #450 cordite. We agreed that as it was impossible for a lion to get through this array, we would go straight on to him at once on foot. I was quite sure he would charge us straight, but equally confident he could not reach us ; but he very nearly did, and that is the whole point of this tale. We walked up to within nine paces of him, being on ground that sloped downwards to the little patch of reeds which concealed him. There we halted, and a stone thrown by Allsopp brought him out with a terrific grunt — flying straight at us. Bang went all the guns together without any apparent result, and I only got my second barrel off at five short paces — over he went. Now what happened was this : Hill, with that wonderful speed in firing a single-barrelled magazine rifle characteristic of South Africans, got in two, if not three shots ; two struck, one of these hit the lion full in the nose, breaking teeth, cutting along the roof of the mouth and lodging in the base of theskull. Thishad no effecton the fury and vigour of his charge.

AT CLOSE QUARTERS 43

Allsopp's shot only slightly wounded him, and my first barrel struck him where neck and shoulder join; the ball passed under the shoulder blade, raking along his ribs till it stuck in the skin at his hip. All these shots appeared to have no effect on the charge, and might as well have been misses as far as our safety was con- cerned, though, such was Hill's rapidity of fire, I would not like to say that he could not have got in yet another shot (the last in his magazine) if my second bullet had played me the same trick as my first. I have heard that the nose shot is not a safe one with tigers, but it is a revelation to me that with a powerful rifle a few feet off it is practically useless on a lion,1 and I suppose one might fire fifty 10-bore balls into a lion's neck without one glancing as my first bullet did. But I call that a courageous lion to face so many standing together and go through so much heavy lead from very powerful weapons fired straight into him at two or three yards' range, particularly when he was fat, gorged, and unwounded.

I cannot subscribe to the epithet " coward " applied to lions, for few will shirk an encounter if they think it necessary. I have observed that lions avoid being followed by men (Cowards !); I have also noticed that men dislike being

1 The late Mr. George Grey, who was fatally injured in 191 1 whilst hunting lions with me, hit the charging lion in the mouth and broke his jaw, at 5 yards range, with a -280 Ross copper- pointed bullet without checking or turning the charge in the least.

44 OF THE COURAGE OF LIONS

followed by lions (Cowards too!); besides, a brave man is not necessarily spoiling for a fight, — some of the bravest I have known were the gentlest and most retiring of persons, but these like lions when they once start, and think they must fight, face fire, wire and water, and throw away their lives, before they will throw down their arms on the field of battle, no matter what are the odds they have to confront.

And what can I say with regard to their conduct in the dark ? It is true that lions sneak up to their prey and seize their unarmed and unsuspecting victims by the throat or neck, or drag weaker creatures to the ground in assaults from the rear ; but let us be reasonable and consider what would be our behaviour, as courageous men, were all our meals quick of eye and ear and fleeter of foot than we. Is it more cowardly or mean than the way in which we pro- ceed to secure our dinners when we know we cannot catch the said dinner on a fair field with no favour ? And a lion when he is hungry is so very dreadfully hungry — the awful ravening pangs of his inside pass man's understanding ; he does not study how his behaviour may appear to his victims any more than we do when we hide in a grouse butt. What do you say of lions which beard railway trains at night and take men out of the windows of the compartments, or of the hundreds of them which leap into crowded villages in the dark among the blazing watch-

A VALIANT BEAST 45

fires, to seize their suppers under a hail of flaming brands, spears, and clubs, amid the yells of men and the screeching of women ; or those innumer- able ones which " take on " in mortal combat such beasts as buffaloes, animals vastly superior in size and weight, well-armed and, when embarked on a fight for life, as ferocious as themselves ? No, the lion is a valiant beast.

CHAPTER IV

OF DANGEROUS GAME

All insurrections against the leonine monarchy are doomed to failure. I have argued the lion's title on the ground of his superior majesty, dignity, and courage, but his throne will be secure by prescriptive right as long as his royal line continues. Is the lion the most dangerous of all big game ? This is a question upon which sportsmen will continue to hold different opinions. I am convinced, in proportion to the number of lions killed, there are far more men killed, fatally injured, maimed for life, and badly mauled than in the pursuit of any other species of animal, and that with the sole exception of the tiger there is no other creature where the immense improvement in rifles, loads, and bullets gives man so little advantage over the older patterns of weapons and conditions of shooting, but I shall have more to say on this last point later. I would not like to assert, with my almost total inexperience of tigers, that if one hundred sports- men on foot went out, each alone, after one hundred separate lions, that there would be

more casualties than if the same number of men

46

TROOPS OF LIONS 47

of the same quality went out separately after one hundred tigers.

As to facts, tigers are not so much hunted on foot, and as far as I know never on horseback ; they skulk more in jungles and are not constantly encountered in bands or parties. I have no idea what is the largest number of tigers recorded by sportsmen as having been seen together at one time, but I do know that it is rare to see many together in a party, and as many as thirty -three lions have been seen together in one company. Over forty in one troop were seen on the Kapiti Plains in 1911. The Hon. F. J. Jackson (the present Governor of Uganda) saw some years ago twenty-three together near the site on which I built my house. Sir Harry Johnston mentions having seen fifteen in one lot in the Kenia district. I have tracked as many as this together in Somaliland.

Mr. Hume Chaloner, who was with me in British East Africa, saw fifteen in one troop near Embu (May 1909). My tent boy, who was no liar, saw twenty-eight together one day in Somaliland. The Hon. Galbraith Cole told me that two or three years ago, in British East Africa, he was riding alone and not paying much attention to the game around him, when he suddenly became aware that a particular lot of kongoni he was passing through were not kongoni at all, but lions ; he counted twenty-three or twenty-five of them all round him, and remained

48 OF DANGEROUS GAME

motionless as the wisest thing to be done under the circumstances. Twenty of them after a short time moved off together, two continued to eye him, and one only made demonstrations of anger, but these also turned and followed the others.

Instances like these could be multiplied almost indefinitely, whilst to see from four to seven in one band is a thing of very common occurrence indeed, and I imagine a very un- common one in the case of tigers. I think I shall be on the safe side in asserting that nine out of ten tigers killed by Europeans in India are slain from the backs of elephants, from machans, and other places of safety, or in the company of large bodies of men and parties of sportsmen. Tigers, I should say, deal out far more death to mankind than lions, but then they frequent more populous places and prey on more timid races. As a rule, African natives do not tolerate a man-eating lion, and the community will turn out en masse to rid itself of such a nuisance. Some Asiatic peoples, if free from timidity, would refrain from exterminating man-eating tigers from superstition. That a tiger approached on foot is as dangerous an animal as a lion, I well believe, and to follow up a wounded tiger on foot an even more hazardous undertaking. Pro- bably the tiger is endowed with greater muscular activity, quicker moving power, and ability to cover more ground in his bound. His skin is a far more beautiful trophy ; but when I come to

ELEPHANT, BUFFALO, & RHINOCEROS 49

decide which is the more sporting beast I place the lion an easy first, as best satisfying the standard of sport which I have set up for myself. In my humble judgment, the risk of serious casualties in hunting elephants, buffaloes, and rhinoceroses on foot is small compared with that of hunting lions and tigers on foot. A man may kill score after score of these animals without coming to grief or even witnessing a fatal accideRt. Only two men I have known have been killed by elephants in Africa, only one by buffalo, and none by rhino. Personally I am acquainted with no one who has been seriously injured by any of these, whilst it would be difficult for me to count up all the men I have known killed or permanently injured by lions. I am aware that the experience of one individual is poor evidence, yet I think most experienced hunters, if their opinion differed in some parti- culars, would on the whole agree with me. An elephant under certain conditions and wounds, as also individual wicked ones, can be appallingly dangerous, and where their assailant is disarmed can be most persevering in their vengeance. Occasionally a wounded elephant will hunt a man down most scientifically, circling and sinking the wind till he scents him and then bearing down on him ; such a man without ammunition or with a jammed rifle, if he is in a small-bush country or among reeds, high grass, or in dense jungle, is likely to have a very bad time, for

50 OF DANGEROUS GAME

wherever he flies or hides he will be discovered by the mighty smeller- out.

I have heard of some marvellous escapes from elephants. Mr. Victor Cavendish told me that on his journey through Somaliland to Lake Rudolph, when he shot a large number of elephants, he on one occasion wounded an old bull, which thereupon took up his stand on fairly open ground behind a bush. Cavendish's shikari told him the elephant was going to charge, and he made haste to reload his empty barrel. He opened the breech, ejected the empty case, and put in another cartridge, but he could not get the cartridge home in the chamber ; he tried force, but failed — then tried with all his might to draw it out, but in vain, and now the elephant bore down on him while he struggled with the cartridge which jammed his rifle open. There was nothing for it but to fly; he saw that there was about 100 yards of open to cover on foot before he could reach the only refuge in the bush which could possibly give him time to deal with the refractory cartridge. Long before he had reached this shelter the huge head of the elephant over- shadowed him — he flung himself on one side on the ground and lay motionless as the great monster with all his "way on" thundered by; then round swung the elephant and came for him — down on to its knees it went, prodding at him with its heavy tusks ; but before it had touched him Cavendish had wriggled under the

A MARVELLOUS ESCAPE 51

elephant's chin, out of reach of the tusks and out of sight of his little eyes. From this time for some twenty minutes or more the elephant endeavoured to pound him with his knees, but never fairly " got him." Meanwhile Cavendish's shikari had run back to his master's pony and syce, and had got another rifle and returned. He naturally believed his sahib had been dead some time, nevertheless he approached the elephant and pumped bullets into him ; then the elephant got up and moved off about 70 yards. To the astonishment of the Somali boys, the corpse on the ground got up and came towards them with not so much as a broken bone, and a few days' rest in camp saw him practically recovered from the bruises and contusions he had received. If the fast shuffling trot of an elephant may be called " flying " it may be generally conceded that they almost always fly from every trace of humanity. The merest whiff of a man suffices to stampede a whole herd. When an' elephant is cornered, or surprised and wounded, and, with trunk upraised and ears set out like sails, he bears down screaming upon his enemy, a shot in the chest or head generally (I very nearly said always) turns or stops him, at any rate with a modern elephant rifle. The lion has keen sight, possibly the most perfect of any creature, but the elephant, like the rhinoceros, has considerable difficulty in seeing. Once with the wind right but with impassable water between

52 OF DANGEROUS GAME

me and some fine tuskers, I tried for a long time to attract their attention, even firing several shots in their direction ; they sometimes moved a little after they heard the shot, but evidently could not make me out, though I was standing in full view on the top of a very large ant-hill.

Again, elephants are usually shot at very close quarters, say from 5 to 30 yards distance, and provided the wind is right, and the huge beast carefully stalked, a very deliberate and accurately fatal shot is comparatively easy. When it is all over he is a bit of a ruffian who does not feel remorse at the sight of one of these sagacious, magnificent monsters, which may have taken Nature near a hundred years to furnish with his size and ivory, laid in ruins at his feet.

Nearly every sportsman who comes out to British East Africa for big game kills several rhinoceroses, not a few of these visitors return home without ever having the chance of killing lions ; yet many are the men killed or mauled by lions, and very, very few are those injured by rhinoceroses.

The powerful rifles of the day are wonderfully effective on rhinoceros but give little advantage, if any, over old-fashioned weapons or even small- bore rifles in the desperate charge of a lion. Personally I have never known a single instance, where a rhino charged a man armed and ready for him, when the rhinoceros did any damage at all. Though rhinoceros often charge, I am quite

THE RHINOCEROS 53

certain that many so-called rhino charges are not charges at all, and, as often as not, when a rhino jumps out of his bed in a thicket with a snort and a rush that is alarming (generally the result more of terror than anger) his only instinct is to get clear of the bother as fast as he can. On such an occasion I have stood stock-still at the " ready " without firing, and though he has charged out he has gone careering past without paying me the slightest attention. A friend of mine told me that when on safari down the Tana River, his party disturbed on a march of several weeks over one hundred rhinoceros ; of these only one charged the safari, and this happened when they were in horseshoe formation and he charged straight through the porters. However, it does not much matter whether his intentions are innocent or otherwise if you happen to be in his way, and often men and camels have been sent flying and much damage has been done by a rogue or a terrified rhino.

Mr. Relly of Nairobi gave me an amusing account of seeing a rhino charge a train he was in, on the Uganda Railway, and how he twice went headlong at the carriages, striking the foot- board each time and then retiring at a trot towards the hills with a very bloody snout, like any other anarchist running up against civiliza- tion. You do not want to get in the road of a beast which tries to butt over railway trains. Yet I hold to my opinion that the rhinoceros,

54 OF DANGEROUS GAME

either white or black, if inquisitive is seldom aggressive, and only a small proportion of his kind is really vicious. These latter are more frequent near places where they are liable to be disturbed. The rhinoceros likes to spend his harmless life as far from the white man as he can.

As for buffalo, they are certainly dangerous game, my own impression is that after lions and tigers they and elephants are the most dangerous adversaries a sportsman can engage. The best authorities are not agreed as to how dangerous buffaloes are. I have met many men whose opinions are worth having, who count the buffalo as the most dangerous of all big game. Opinions on this point are largely formed accord- ing to the district and kind of country where experience has been acquired. Selous declares : " I do not consider the Cape buffalo — and I have had an immense experience of these animals, and have shot well over two hundred of them, mostly on foot in every kind of surroundings — to be a naturally vicious or ferocious animal." A man who knows so much about the beast as this is not one to dispute with; at least I am in no way qualified to argue the question. The late George Grey, with a great experience of them, held the same opinion. The Hon. F. J. Jackson, with a long experience in Equatorial Africa, says : " I consider it the pluckiest, and, wounded, the most cunning and savage of all game that is considered dangerous." I will only add that it

THE PANTHER AND THE LEOPARD 55

appears to me that had the man who has killed over two hundred buffaloes on foot killed two hundred lions on foot in the daytime he might be considered fortunate to have survived, and at least would not be able to declare that the lion was naturally not " a vicious or ferocious animal." As far as Africa is concerned, there remains no other game whose claims to the character of dangerous are worth examining in relation to the lion, unless it be possibly the panther. I do not allude to the leopard, which is only a very big cat, which flies at a man readily and viciously on very slight provocation, and at times without any ; but which after all does not brain him with blow of paw or crunch big bones up between great jaws. The leopard is an animal you can brain with a club or strangle with bare hands, and which bites and scratches in a very nasty way, as I have seen it do, yet apart from the risk of blood-poisoning there is little danger to life and limb in hunting them. Scientific naturalists refuse to recognize a difference between panthers and leopards, yet I venture to declare that there is no comparison between the great dark panthers of North Africa and the common leopard, either in appearance, size, weight, or power to inflict injury. I have seen panthers nearly as large as lions, with immense arms and muscles, and panther skins as large as lion skins.1 The

1 1 read in a French newspaper that a panther had been killed this year (191 3) in Algeria which measured, before being skinned, about 8 feet 10 inches (2 m. 75 cm.).

56 OF DANGEROUS GAME

panther is still to be found in the Atlas Range, a few -in the mountains of Somaliland, and no doubt elsewhere in Africa. There was one I sought for in vain which had claimed many victims among the natives near the Jerato Pass in the Golis Mountains ; he had haunted the Gan Libah for some years. The Somalis distinguish the panther by the name of " Orghobie " from the leopard, which they call " Shabel." The Arabs of North Africa hold the panther in more dread than the lion. In old days when the panther was still ubiquitous in the Atlas my Arab hunters told me panthers very often became man- eaters, that they would frequently, in a way very rare in the case of lions, fly out from above on to men as they walked on mountain tracks, and that they were often as large as lions ; that whilst it did not matter so much approaching a lion from below, it was a most dangerous thing to go up- hill to a panther.

Leopards do, however, stalk and attack natives, and not infrequently carry off women and children. I was once stalked by a leopard whilst dozing in the shade of a candelabra euphorbia tree, in the Gadabursi Mountains, after a fruit- less morning after greater kudu. My three boys were sleeping under another tree 100 yards away. I had my *256 rifle laid across my knee, my feet on a little ledge of rock, below my boots stretched high grass down the steep side of a mountain gully, and an upland

STALKED BY A LEOPARD 57

breeze fanned me pleasantly. I was roused by a soft purring grunting, and half opened my eyes and instinctively turned the safety off my rifle ; in Africa one learns without effort the habit of sleeping even by night with one eye open, as it were. I gazed sleepily without the least apprehension of danger at the waving yellow grass in front of my feet, and saw what I thought was the top of a cat's tail twisting and turning above the surface of the grass 10 feet below me. Then it suddenly struck me that this cat's tail was exceedingly long and marked uncommonly like a leopard's, and also getting uncommonly near me — in fact I realized I was being stalked up wind ; at the very moment that the situation flashed on my brain, the top of the leopard's head and eyes rose slowly to the top of the grass exactly over the toes of my boots. I whisked the rifle round with the muzzle within an inch or so of its eyes, and fired. Up went the leopard in the air, as I thought dead. I jumped up and looked at the bent grass at my feet where the leopard appeared to fall, but no leopard was there. The boys ran up to me, and for an hour we searched the gully, but never so much as found a drop of blood. What happened I do not know ; a miss was difficult to believe, for though I had no time to put the rifle to my shoulder the muzzle was practically touching its nose. The only explanation I could suggest to myself was that the bullet glanced off the skull above the

58 OF DANGEROUS GAME

eyes, which would be almost in the same plane as my rifle when his eyes met mine above him.

Leopards will stalk people asleep, but the cowardly hyaena will do this ; while a leopard seizes by the neck or throat, the dirty hyaena grabs at the face. We had a Somali cook, Ali Saha, now dead, who had half his face taken off in this nasty way by a hyaena whilst he slept. Hyaenas are very bold at night ; I have several times known them come right into tents. I recollect a hyaena carrying a saddle out of one of our tents while the occupant slept, and eating practically all of it but the stirrup-irons. This is preferable to awakening without a face, or only so much of one as might cause you yourself to be mistaken for a hyaena.

Once in the Danakil country my wife woke me up, calling to me in a whisper, " There is something in the tent ; is it a lion ? " It was a bright moonlight night and our tent door was wide open, but the tent, being double-roofed and under a big tree, was dark inside. I always slept with a 10-bore gun, loaded with buckshot, close to my hand. I seized this and raised myself slowly in bed, but could see nothing.

" I saw it come in," whispered my wife, " and it stood in the doorway." As she spoke I saw a large beast standing in the doorway; as I moved my gun it bolted out and I ran to get a shot. As it emerged out of the shadow of

HYENAS AND WILD DOGS 59

the tree I just saw that it was a hyaena, but he never gave me the chance of a shot. However, my wife's alertness saved our faces — moral, always travel with your wife.

A friend of mine in East Africa had, not very long since, a nerve-shaking experience at night. He was travelling with a troop of ostriches and was sleeping on the ground close to the tent so as to be able to guard them better. In the middle of the night he awoke with a horrible sensation, and opened his eyes to find a huge brute standing over his body breathing an awful breath and glaring in his face. What it was neither he nor his friend in bed within the tent had any idea. Their screams and shouts frightened it away, but it was long before my friend could sleep comfort- ably again in the open. I expect it was a hyaena, though my friend rather inclines to the opinion that it was a lion. The only description of the beast's face I could get from him was that it was too awfully terrible and hideous for words !

Some people regard wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), often called the Cape hunting-dog, as dangerous, but the instances are rare of their having attacked men. I have never seen them attempt it, but know of two cases, related to me by eye-witnesses, both of whom I regard as absolutely reliable, in relating what they had seen.

Some years ago one of the Sabi game rangers in the Barberton district told me, that as a certain Mr. Colman was making his way over the veldt

60 OF DANGEROUS GAME

near the picturesque kopjie of Logogot he heard the screams of a Kaffir, and, riding on to see what was the matter, he beheld five wild dogs attack- ing, in a most determined manner, a Kaffir who was defending himself with a white cloth which he was waving and shaking at them. The other case was where my informant saw a Kaffir on a path in the bush carrying the head of a freshly beheaded cow in his hand, when a wild dog suddenly rushed out on to the track and snatched the head away from the native.

As for myself, I would rather meet, as I have frequently done, a pack of wild dogs than a troop of angry baboons. These last have given me as good a scaring as ever I have had, and I have seen the boldest man come into camp shaken after an encounter with these dog-faced gentlemen.

Wild dogs * do not eat carrion as a rule, they kill for themselves and in a very wholesale way. At the same time, I have seen them eating dead rhino, on returning to the carcass of one shot the previous day. I have seen hundreds of wild dogs, and always in packs — rarely less than five together, and more often from ten to forty. In the Transvaal I have shot wild dogs with the prevailing colour dun, blotched, spotted, and striped with brown, legs and feet spotted with white as well, and white tip to tail ; such a skin

1 I am referring only to the Lycaon, and not to the quite distinct races such as the Abyssinian wolf {Cants simensis), etc.

ARE WILD DOGS DANGEROUS ? 61

I have had measuring, unpegged over all, i.e. from tip of nose to tip of tail, more than 5 feet. This is the common type, with variations in the markings, of Lycaon in South Africa.

Abyssinian wild dogs appear to me to be as large, if not larger, the Somali ones smaller, whilst the British East African sort is so much smaller and the prevailing dark brown so distinct that even a short distance off he looks like a little black dog with a white tip to his tail. All these brutes are most destructive and will at times kill the larger antelopes, but more fre- quently hunt the smaller buck, duikers, stein- buck, modaqua, gazelles, and the like. They are particularly fond of impala.

In Abyssinia I once followed a pack about fifty strong, and every few hundred yards, during a pursuit oi some five miles, I came upon the remains of some small buck, a hoof or bit of skin in the trampled and blood-stained grass, which they had killed as they fled before me, and this in spite of the fact that several of their number had my bullets through them. Wild dogs can look very alarming. I have stood with thirty or more of them in lines in front of me at about 40 yards distant, jumping in the grass to get a better view of me and barking. Being without a boy I felt very uncomfortable till they departed, which they did after I had laid out four or five of them. However, they cannot be classed among dangerous game in any further sense

62 OF DANGEROUS GAME

than that if you were to come across a starving pack (a very unlikely thing), they might behave in the same way as their more powerful relations the wolves or their cousins the hyaenas.

The following classification of Wild Dogs (Lycaon pictus) has recently been attempted : I think it may require further additions and some alteration when more specimens are col- lected and compared : —

1. Venaticus. — This name has been given to the South African type. It is distinguished by the prevalence of orange yellow over the back, the partially yellow backs of the ears, the large amount of yellow on the underparts of the body, and the whitish hairs on the thoral ruff.

2. Mozambiqus. — The Mozambique type ex- hibits an almost equal distribution of yellow and black both above and under the body. The backs of the ears and the throat ruff are black. The whole coat has less white in it than that of Venaticus.

8. Lupinus. — The East African variety is distinguished by being much darker ; the yellow is reduced to a minimum.

4. Somalicus is described as being smaller than the others, shorter in ^ts coat, with less powerful teeth, and generally dark in colour. From my own observation I cannot confirm the description of the Somali wild dog as smaller than the East African. The British East African wild dog in the upland districts is the

THE COWARDLY HYAENA 63

smallest Lycaon I have met with. The Trans- vaal and the Galla or Abyssinian varieties are the largest I have seen.

5. Zuluensis. — This type is profusely mottled on the back with white as well as yellow and black. The fur is long and coarse, the backs of the ears are blackish, and the underparts tri- coloured. The tail, which in some varieties has a small tip of white, has about half its length wThite. (Probably there is little difference be- tween the Zulu and Transvaal varieties. — A. E. P.)

6. Sharicus. — The Boyd- Alexander expedition came upon a new variety of Lycaon in the Shari region, which was given this name. The account of this Lycaon by Boyd- Alexander in his From the Niger to the Nile is hardly sufficient for identification purposes. It is merely this : " Skin a mixture of yellow, black, white, and grey, with bushy tail."

Hyaenas are utter cowards, but when they get together in packs of over a dozen, as they occasionally do, they may sometimes be danger- ous. I have seen a few hyaenas make a leopard drop a sheep at once; and the most diabolical row I ever heard in my life was one night, south of Hargaisa in Somaliland, when a crowd of hyaenas attacked a lion. The Somalis say it is not uncommon when a number of hungry hyaenas get together, for them to kill a lion on his victim. Hunger will drive man or any other carnivorous

64 OF DANGEROUS GAME

creature to desperate deeds — yet the hyaena must be writ down a coward of the cowards.

The only occasions outside a zoological garden when I have heard hyaenas laugh were on the two I have just referred to, and I imagine the laugh was entirely on their side both times.

To return to wild dogs for a moment. An acquaintance of mine, a very fine type of the South African low-veldt colonist and of Scottish birth, named William Saunderson, a man as observant as he was intelligent, told me he had tried to tame wild dog pups, and succeeded, but, as they never lost their very offensive smell, and always reverted to temporary ferocity over any meat, he gave them up. He also found them a nuisance when he had them out shooting with him, for they would always hunt on their own and apart from the other dogs. The last ones he kept he allowed to eat a dead cow, and they ate the meat till they literally burst, and thus he was rid of the lot, Death coming to them in his most attractive and sweetest aspect.

The bitches drop their litters of five or seven cubs in a group of ant-bear holes or some such earths, and the families will all dwell together. The mothers, however, do not live with them, but lie outside and hunt, returning from time to time. They feed their pups by vomiting outside the earths. Saunderson was absolutely certain of this, and in his experience there were gener- ally three or four families together. He asserts

THE STRIPED HY^NA 65

that hyaenas do the same, but that, as far as he could tell, the female seldom produces more than one cub, which is fed in the same dainty manner. If this is so, and I do not doubt it, it adds another point to the apparent ones of similarity between Lycaon and Hycena. The striped hyaena (H. striata) is the only one I have ever seen in North Africa, and I do not know how far north the largest of the hyaenas, the spotted one (H. crocuta), ranges, but as the cave remains of Europe, including those of Yorkshire, are said to include remains of crocuta, I presume this species was distributed all over Africa at one time. It would be well to have an authoritative statement as to whether the striped hyaena (H. striata) of the Atlas region is identical with that of Somaliland and of Equatorial Africa. I know all these, but have omitted to compare the skins and skulls of the specimens I have killed. Judging by what I have killed myself, I am inclined to think the North African type altogether larger than the East African one and somewhat bigger than the Somali one.

The authorities affirm that striata is not found in South Africa, only the brown hyaena (H. brunea) and the spotted (H. crocuta). I believe the striped to be very uncommon south of the Equator, though I have shot one near Sultan Hamoud in British East Africa, and know of two that were poisoned near Lion Kopjies in the Transvaal at kilometre 70 on the

6Q OF DANGEROUS GAME

Selati Railway in 1887. The brown hyaena ranges as far north as Kilimanjaro, if Sir H. H. Johnston saw one, as he believes he did, on that mountain. The striped hysena is far more aggressive in North Africa than elsewhere, fre- quently killing donkeys, mules, and occasionally horses, seizing them in the flank or belly and disembowelling them. All the Hyaenidae are mischievous in this sort of way where carrion and kills are scarce.

Even the little aard-wolf inflicts considerable damage on sheep and goats in Somaliland, and I believe also in South Africa his habits in this respect do not commend him to the farmer. I may add that with regard to the spotted hyaena there are still persons, generally well informed, who maintain the old superstition that the spotted hyaena is hermaphrodite, which of course is absurd. The sex is somewhat difficult to distinguish by external evidence, save when the female has young.

The cheetah or hunting leopard belongs to a separate division of the Cat family, and cannot be considered in the least a dangerous animal. I have seen many killed, and I have ridden down a considerable number myself as well as shot them on foot. I have frequently gone up to them on foot when wounded or at bay, and never seen them make any attempt at defence beyond growling and snarling. The African variety differs hardly at all from the Asiatic, save that

THE CHEETAH 67

its pretty spotted coat is a little more woolly in its texture. The cheetah on sound and open ground gives a good run when pursued on horse- back, but is almost invariably ridden down. They destroy a great deal of game and will kill large antelopes.

I once shot a serval attacking a hartebeest (Bubalis swaynei) bull, which I also shot with my second barrel, so I can well believe a pair of cheetahs have been seen to kill a greater kudu. Cheetahs often hunt in couples, though I have seen quite as many alone as in pairs. They seize an animal by the throat and hang on like bulldogs till it drops. They have several cubs, usually three or four in a litter, with very long, woolly, darkish coats. A big cheetah stands within an inch or so of 3 feet high, measures over all 7 feet in length, of which length the tail takes up more than a third. They are long on the leg and light and lithe of body. It is not true that they have dog's claws — their claws are as sharp as a cat's, as I have known to my cost when handling young ones, which are very easily tamed, besides their claws are at least partially retractile. Cheetahs have a very singular whistling bird-like note. Sir Harry Johnston says that the cheetah of South Africa is red spotted, but this is not so; they do not differ in colour in any way from all the other cheetahs in different parts of Africa which I have seen, and, like them, are spotted with dark brown spots on

68 OF DANGEROUS GAME

a pale buff or cream-coloured ground — what the casual observer would probably call black spots on yellow ground. Slight variations in colour are found among all species of animals and in all localities. Albinism or melanism may occur in any species. Probably there is no member of the Wild Cat family so liable to colour variations as the leopard. I have never seen or heard of an albino leopard, but black leopards are by no means uncommon in either Africa or Asia. I do not know either of a white or truly black lion ever having been seen or killed.

CHAPTER V

OF SPORT

On a previous page the opinion has been ex- pressed that of all big game the lion is the most sporting beast, at least so I judge it by the standard I set up for myself. I am not sure that pig- sticking in India would not take the first prize, and pig- sticking in Africa run lion- hunting close, if it came to the votes of sportsmen (who have had a fair innings at all) as to what was the best sport. If I were asked my own opinion, I should say that a really first-class run with foxhounds beats everything. Still we can hardly call a fox " big game," and I don't quite know where to put the pigs.

The wild boar of Europe is big game, the smaller pig of India is as plucky and bold as any in the world, and a trifle more active by all accounts. The wart hog and bush pigs of Africa can be formidable at times, and any one who had not seen how the former can stand up and go over a country, as well as charge and fight, would hardly credit what a sporting animal even a wart hog can be ; yet I do not think I shall be far from the mark if I say that

70 OF SPORT

about nine out of ten sportsmen, if the choice were given them, would choose the day after lion rather than the day after pig. At any rate, the lion comes up to the top of the stand- ard by which I measure a sporting beast. The reader shall have this standard to criticize, condemn, or approve of. My definition of " Sport " is fair competition with man or beast for the mastery as a recreation. Where wild animals are concerned, the competition, to be fair, must have for its field of action their natural haunts.

In reflecting upon the constituents of field sports, I have come to the conclusion that there are four principal ones, and that when all these are present the sport is entitled to be termed true sport : —

1. Absolutely wild game the object of pursuit.

2. Nature's field for the action.

3. Physical exertion.

4. Exercise of skill.

By this standard there is no true sport in attacking or pursuing any animal anywhere, save when itis absolutely free in its natural haunts. The true sportsman delights in match- ing his own endowments of instinct, endurance, sight, hearing, and observation, also his acquired knowledge and skill, against the endowments and acquisitions of his competitors. Nature bestows on some animals rapidity of motion,

THE CONSTITUENTS OF SPORT 71

endurance, and concealment, agility in climbing, sensibility of sight, smell, and hearing ; on others a size, strength, and armament for attack or defence which would make either chase or combat futile for man, did he not call to his assistance weapons, the product of his own invention, and enlist in his cause the services of horses and dogs or of birds of prey, bred and trained by his own efforts and skill, to suit his purpose. Almost all sport has become so artificial in the British Isles, and is pursued under such bastard con- ditions and regulations, that it is only a few of the field sports which reach this standard ; even in the British Possessions in Africa a man cannot now go where he will, shoot what he likes, and regard himself as having secured by his own enterprise a monopoly over the big game of what- ever vast territory his own sweet will has led him to explore. These delights belong to a past and cannot now be experienced. However, at home the four constituents named may still be found present in wild-fowling, in grouse, partridge, woodcock, and snipe shooting, and in hunting and deer-stalking. In inferior or bastard sports, such as tame pheasant and tame duck shooting, or the shooting or coursing of rabbits and hares in earth-stopped warrens or enclosed grounds, at most the second and fourth may be present.

In the case of coursing and shooting in enclosures only the fourth, and no great amount of that as a rule can be detected. These latter

72 OF SPORT

forms of diversion, with pigeon-shooting and the like, fall into a low class near badger- and bull- baiting — less brutalizing but more cruel. The only point in which such pursuits can claim any superiority over a cock or dog fight is that they possibly admit of a superior exercise of skill.

The man who devotes himself to a sport in which the exercise of his own skill is the only factor present, seems hardly to have acquired thereby any title of " sportsman." At best it is a recreation. Such amusements as tame pheasant and duck shooting are indulged in by thousands who on other accounts are rightly dubbed sportsmen.

To fish fairly in river, loch, and sea ; to hunt fairly with hounds or rifle or gun on foot or on horseback ; to stalk and climb after wild sheep, goats, chamois^ mouflon, and deer; to pursue big game, — all these satisfy the conditions laid down.

True sport increases in quality as the game and its haunts are more truly wild, and yet more and more as the element of danger and the mimicry of war enter into it. I do not enter into the bearing of the question as regards competitive contests between men — such as prize- fighting, wrestling, athletics, football, polo, flat and hurdle-racing, and steeple-chasing — further than to say that the men who take part, the men who give and take the knocks, the men who play and the men who ride, most certainly deserve

NATURE'S CONFIDANTES 73

their title of sportsmen, for these contests bring into play in a very high degree most of the constituents of sport. On the other hand, those who bawl and take the odds and all such have not an iota of a claim to any fragment of such distinction. You cannot be a sportsman by proxy.

The players of games from cricket downwards are in a category apart. The " image of war," which authorities from the time of Xenophon to that of John Jorrocks consider sport must be in some degree, is not so easy to discern in them. Such games are manly pastimes and recreations rather than sport. The man who plays games for pay is in the lowest class of all. This kind of thing has become the prostitution of recreation.

The fascination of sport is dependent to an enormous extent on the field of action. The moor and the loch, the rivers and streams, the valleys and plains, the mountains and crags, the wilderness and the desert, the jungle and bush truly belong to the true sportsman and to him alone. Sport is the only medium which will convey real intimacy with them. Others may enjoy acquaintance with them, but in the sports- man's ear alone does Nature whisper her con- fidences, and to his eye alone does she discover all her charms and all her moods and tempers.

Others may learn much, see much, enjoy much, but the most and best is known to the man who quits his bed before sunrise, who

74 OF SPORT

spends his nights as well as days by the month and the year on mountain-ranges, in forests, and in the wilderness, who bears heat and cold and hunger, thirst and toil, for love of her; and is pushed by his passion down into the abysmal depths of Himalayan gorges, African kloofs, or American canons, or led up to snowy peaks, to realms of eternal ice, or over the sun-withered wastes of the earth, to visit the utmost refuges of beast and bird.

The artist is his only rival in his courtship, the only competitor for the bliss of a sportsman's paradise. The best artists have something of the sportsman's instinctive longing to see, to touch, to handle, and the best sportsmen have something of the artistic temperament. Yet when I think of it, where is the artist in litera- ture or painting who, like innumerable sportsmen, despising wealth and fame, have wandered off alone to spend all their years in Nature's wilds, finding there alone what can satisfy their love of her delights ?

Lion-hunting meets all the requirements of sport. The lion is a wild beast in Nature's wildest haunts — he calls for exertion in his pursuit and skill for his defeat. Many wild creatures lead us into grander scenery.

To my mind nothing compares with the hunt- ing of wild goats and wild sheep (in which I include many species of these families — chamois, mouflon, ibex, and the rest), a sport which calls

A LASTING LESSON 75

forth the highest efforts of skill as well as of endurance, the whole craft of hunting in the most magnificent and terrible places on God's earth. I would rather have hanging on my wall the head of an old markhor than that of the best lion I have ever seen, all the more because I know the time has nowr gone by when I could stand the work necessary to win this prize.

A high pheasant may require as much skill to kill neatly as a charging lion, but it does not matter so much if you miss him or only take his tail off. When you are, as a friend of mine calls it, " closing with " a lion you feel you are engaged with the arch-enemy of man and beast, and that only one of you may come alive out of the fight. This is the spice which makes the pursuit of lions so attractive. The lion's mien, his eye, his voice proclaim him a royal antagonist ; his teeth, his claws, his mighty arms, his strength, his size all vouch for his being a very formidable one.

OF TERROR

I have known fear often, but true terror only once, and though it has not very much to do with lions, a description of how I was literally terrified out of my senses may serve as a warning to others of what not to do when out lion or any other kind of hunting. The experience has been a lasting lesson to me. To any but

76 OF TERROR

those who have been in the same position the story may appear both ridiculous and trivial. To my companions at the time it never appeared as more than as an everyday incident to travel ; not so to me. Any one who has been truly lost alone knows what true terror is ; there is no other kind of fear like it — the horrible anxiety I have felt once or twice in the Sahara when the guide has confessed himself off the line, the close ad- herence to which means life or death, is nothing to being lost alone. In the course of an hour or two I confess to having been reduced to a con- dition when I could neither trust my eyes nor use my reason.

Lions were the indirect cause of what hap- pened to me on this occasion. I have been lost in the bush by day and by night for longer or shorter periods, but save on this one always in the company of one or more natives ; this time I was by myself, in an uninhabited country and a day's march from any water, and even its direction quite unknown to me. We were marching through a waterless, hilly country, making a course about due north, but our caravan of camels had to wind in and out of the ravines and valleys which spread like a great network over a vast region. We generally meandered along dry- stream beds.

One evening as we were pitching camp, I looked up to the bush-crowned crags above us, as the sun was setting, and saw a hyaena gazing

HOW 1 WAS LOST 77

down from the edge of a cliff. He looked grim and black against the red west, which shone through the leafless thorn trees on the edge. I picked up my rifle and clambered up the side of the ravine, but had hardly started on my ascent when the hyaena made off. I hurried up, and when I reached the top saw the hyaena again, lobbing away through the trees. I followed him a few hundred yards in the hope of getting a shot, but he disappeared down another ravine to the west. I went to some rock terraces overlooking this gully, but saw the hyaena no more. Just as I was about to turn back I noticed three objects, which looked very large among the stunted trees, about half a mile away on the other side of the little valley. They were moving along in single file between me and the sinking sun. At first I thought they were wild donkeys, of which there were a goodly number in some parts of the country, but yet hardly likely to be quite so far from water as this. Then I saw that they were three lions walking steadily along. It was too late to think of going after them, and I had not ammunition enough to attempt it with my •256 rifle, so I returned to camp and told my shikari what I had seen, and suggested trying to find them in the morning.

At dawn we broke up camp, and wThile my two shikaris were giving a hand in taking down my tent, I placed on the ground my water-bottle and 7

78 OF TERROR

ammunition for the day for them to pick up, and thought I would just go and see if I could track the lions at the place where I had seen them the evening before. If I found they could be spoored, my intention was to return for my boys and then follow them up ; it was not more than three-quarters of a mile to where I had seen them. I had five cartridges in my -256 rifle and ten in my pocket. When I got to the top of the cliff the sun had just risen behind me. Camp and the sun were in a direct line. I soon reached the place and found the spoor. This I followed in and out of the bush, down one little valley and up and down another, across and up another and so on, to some rocky terraces, where after casting forward and round, I gave it up and was going to turn back. Just at this moment I spied a herd of gerenuk (Lithocranius walleri), and I thought I would stalk them and see if there was a good male among them ; I got up to them and saw they were all females. I then realized that I must hurry back, as the caravan would already have started. I instinctively looked up at the sky to make a guess as to how long I had been away, the sun in Africa being always a handy and correct time-keeper. I looked for the sun above the bush on my right hand — to my horror it was glaring at me on my left. I stood rooted to the spot. I had intended to bear away straight to my right, having a general faith in my bump of locality. In my

THE EFFECTS OF TERROR 79

mind camp was most certainly on my right, and beyond it ought to be the sun in the east, but there was the sun in the west. Though my reason declared what I held was west was really east, and what I felt was south was really north, I could not straighten the thing out in my head, do what I could. If I followed my reason it seemed I should not know which way to go. So I began to hunt for my own track among the stones and along the ledges of rock where I thought I had been — not a mark could I find.

Then I said to myself, although the sun gave me the lie, " Surely if I go to that cliff-top I shall look down right on to the camping-place." I went there and looked down into a great, wide, wild valley I had never seen before — it looked as if no man had ever seen it — I hated the sight of it. I turned back, walked over the crest of the hill and found another ravine. I gazed down ; all was still and hot. I could not recognize a single feature of it, certainly it was not the valley we had camped in.

I now began to be really frightened, and with little faith began to turn more towards the sun, but did not know whether to turn my steps north or south — whatever I did the sun always seemed in the wrong place. I crossed a valley, walked over a hill, and came to another ravine very like the last; no, that was not it.

Then I thought to myself I must move no more; I must stay here till they come to look

80 OF TERROR

for me. I felt in my pockets, counted my cartridges, and calculated how many shots I dare fire as signal shots. I must fire some at once, as the caravan would be well on its way. I had also a policeman's whistle, my knife, and a pouch of tobacco. I realized if I was not found I must kill meat and drink blood, and that I must keep ammunition for the night, as there was not a single tree big enough to climb into. I fired five shots, counting sixty between each so that they might sound regular, with an interval long enough but not too long to catch the ear of any- one listening for another shot. Our rule was that all signal shots were to be replied to by shots from our men — the camel men carried rifles and carbines. I listened for answering shots; it was all silent in that parched land bristling with the leafless thorns. Well, if my shots were ever to be heard it was now, so I fired two more — deathly silence after the echoes had died away. How I cursed my folly in not telling any one I was going out of camp ; as far as I could recollect not a soul had seen me go. My wife was in her tent, hers being the last to come down ; the boys were singing and bending over their loads, camels, and tent pegs.

, It was my practice to go ahead of the caravan ; they would, if they thought at all, think I was in front ; my boys, my syce and pony would, when the caravan began to move, go hurrying after me on the line of the day's march, as they had often

AN IMPRACTICABLE PLAN 81

done before ; and if during the day I was missed, no one would guess I had been so stupid as not to start from the camping-place at all.

If they went in search of me it was at least even chances against their going all the way back to the camping-place, and if they did I was not there.

I sat down and blew my whistle continuously for about half an hour, and then got into a state of imbecile terror. The more I thought of it, the poorer seemed my chances of being found that day. It was hot, there was thirst and, worse, there was the night ahead of me. I yelled till I could yell no longer, and my throat became dry and hoarse. Then I tried to remem- ber a method I had read of in some excellent book, like Galtort's Art of Travel, for finding your way when you were lost. I could remember you had to blaze a tree, and then walk north, south, east, and west so many paces in each direction from your base and blaze trees or make marks at all these points, and then start from them again, and thus keep on enlarging the circle till it intersected your own track or that of your party or some recognizable objects, but the thing swum in my head and the idea of carrying it out in that network of ravines seemed absolutely as idiotic as I had become myself, however simple it might be when mounted on a good horse in a level country. Had there been the possibility of finding water, a recognizable

82 OF TERROR

mountain within a hundred miles, or had I even had plenty of ammunition, I do not think I should have got into such a state of terror. After three hours of whistling whilst perspiring with funk, I heard far away in the distance what I thought was possibly a human voice. I again whistled and yelled, but heard nothing more for some time, and then I heard the distant cry again, and determined to fire a shot pointing my rifle in that direction. [ After this there seemed to be a long and awful silence, and then to my delight I heard that it was a cry quite distinctly, but some miles off, and I fired another shot and the cry came again. I continued shouting and whistling, but neither my shouts nor my whistles were ever heard by my shikaris till they got on to a ridge about a mile off ; and so I was delivered from my place of torment. It was humiliating to discover myself, after a quick march of about two miles, on the track of the caravan, and I reached my pony after having been lost rather less than five hours.

Really I think my deliverance was fortunate, and it was due to my wife. Our caravan of camels spread over about half a mile. After it had started and the last camel had filed out of the deserted zariba, she had mounted her pony and brought up the rear, expecting that I was far ahead with my boys. After an hour or so she cantered up the line and ahead of the leading camels to overtake me and ride with me. After

THE SENSE OF DIRECTION 83

leaving the camels she came upon my pony and two shikaris hurrying along. She asked where I was ; they replied that they supposed somewhere on in front. This did not satisfy her, and she went back and examined the camel men as to when I had last been seen after breaking up camp, but no one had seen me ; she then re- ported this to my shikaris, who were alarmed and immediately set back at a run and started on their search from the old camping-place, each taking different directions and shouting as they went along the ridges. Only one of my shots had been heard, and none of my cries or whistling. A curious thing is that I got so mixed up, that all that day and the next it seemed to me that we were travelling in quite the wrong direction, and to this moment I still cannot get rid of the impression that for two days we were looping back from the general direction of our march. In those five hours I endured all the sensations of overwhelming desolation and fear which have been so often described, and I have known nothing like it in its paralysing effect on mind and senses. It has taught me never to trust alone to the fallible instincts of direction which white men possess, and to observe carefully every piece of ground passed over in new country ; I make it a rule whenever possible to have a native with me, to keep touch with my pony when I can, and to carry plenty of ammunition. A friend of mine who was a traveller and ex-

84 OF TERROR

plorer of great experience (the late Mr. George Grey), had a compass let in to the stock of his rifle, an admirable precaution and one I recom- mend others to adopt, though I have never taken the trouble to do it myself. I have carried compasses and found them, owing to my own laziness, of little use, for they are of very slight service unless under constant observation — a thing that is not easy to secure when tracking and hunting, and once lost one's faculty for believing facts and evidence seems injured. When once anxiety disturbs one's mental balance there is a risk of underestimating or over- estimating distances ; nothing has led men astray so much as this. You may remember that some little way back you passed a peculiar tree or rock, and think that you can recover your bear- ings if you can find it ; you retrace your steps, till you think you have gone too far and must already have passed it: some such mistake is generally accountable for the beginning of your troubles.

Even in England you may walk over the very track you are looking for without recognizing it ; how much more easy it is thus to miss your way in lands where tracks are slight, or where game or natives spread the ground with a network of paths, those who have wandered in such places know. Some natives have, like cats and dogs and other animals, a perfect sense of direction. I once had a Midgan hunter who never was a

THE VALUE OF SIGNAL PISTOLS 85

moment at fault, even in a dead-level bush country which he had never seen before and which you could not possibly see out of. I remember, when on the march one day, going off with him on fresh lion spoor after he had had a few words of conversation with the headman to this effect : " How far will you march to-day ? " The head- man replied, pointing with his hand, " Till the sun is there, and then we camp." That was all. We tracked the lions for five hours with our eyes on the ground, winding about, in and out, back- wards and forwards, sometimes straight in one direction, sometimes round in another ; at about 2.30 p.m. we decided to make for camp, as we had, we thought, a great many miles to go (really about fifteen). I had not the least idea in which direction our course would lie, beyond that it would be northerly, but the Midgan just set off at a very fast walk, and after three and a half hours' riding after him on his bee-line, he pointed at the bright green of my Willesden canvas tent shining through the bush, 300 yards straight ahead of us. He had done this in country he had never been in before, without ever halting or swerving.

I have of late years, when in new countries and elsewhere, carried one of Holland & Holland's signal pistols, firing coloured lights (red, blue, white, or green) in my saddle-bag, leaving another in camp. Time after time have I, by this means, discovered the whereabouts of

86 OF TERROR

my camp when belated, and not a few white men with me have spent a night in bed instead of in the bush by seeing the rocket light from one of these pistols rush up from camp and burst into red or white stars in the dark sky. If it can be avoided, it is folly even to cross familiar but uninhabited stretches of country alone and without an attendant. I do not think it prudent to ride even across the Athi and Kapiti Plains unaccompanied, though many of us have often done it ; a broken leg, a fall from your horse putting his foot in a hole, or any slight disabling accident is almost a sentence of death. You might lie there for days, unless, what is much the most likely thing, a lion or the hyaenas ate you soon after the first sundown. The best thing to do would be, in such circumstances, to fire the grass — a grass fire would give you light, might keep off wild beasts, and possibly attract a search party.

Such a fire, unless the wind was high, would burn slowly and steadily and would not in a night burn out more than a mile or two of the grass near you ; but did such an accident happen in the rains, your chance of seeing sunrise on these particular plains would not be a very grand one. The following hints may possibly be useful for the novice when out alone : —

1. Carry matches, water, chocolate, or other portable food and plenty of ammunition.

2. A compass if properly used is invaluable,

ADVISABLE PRECAUTIONS 87

and a signal pistol in a saddle-bag is a most useful accessory.

3. When lost (if after circling to find your track you fail to recognize it or any particular feature in the landscape, or in the bush, such as a rock, a hill, a tree), calculate how far you have come since you lost your way at the very most ; mark the place where you are, and make from this point radii of this distance and walk the circle; if your estimate is correct or slightly over, you cannot very well miss reaching some recognizable object. When in unfamiliar country observe the ground, trees, or bush you pass by, and with equal care notice from observing the sun and wind the various directions you take. The wind is a much more dependable guide in Africa than in Europe, for there it will blow out of the same quarter for months together.

With blood warm and in action, in the company of others, even in pain and sickness, and in bed, it may be easy to look Death in the face, but alone in the silent wilderness, with no material foe in sight and in perfect health, imagination conjures up the process of dying as an awful thing and Death appears in a most fiendish shape. Yet Death which delivers us from pain is no enemy. Death is blamed for all the preceding miseries with which he has nothing to do.

CHAPTER VI

THE LION

The majority of white people in South Africa, following the example of their ignorant pre- decessors, call most of the larger wild animals by wrong names. Not content with giving the names of European deer and goats to antelopes (in which respect we have ourselves largely followed their bad example), and calling river- horses sea-cows, zebras quaggas, hares rabbits, and the like, they call a leopard a tiger, a hyaena a wolf, and a cheetah a leopard. They do, however, manage to call a lion a lion.

They must have arrived at this name for a lion by a process of exhaustion ; for when they had named a cheetah a leopard and a leopard a tiger, what wrong name of exaggeration could they bestow on a lion ? . . . They could hardly call him an elephant, or perhaps they perceived they would be hung up when they came to christen the elephant. There is a sort of free masonry among scientific people, and one of the rules of the brotherhood appears to be to give such Latin or other names to every beast which crawls, climbs, flies, walks, or swims that the

88

THE CATS 89

wretched millions not admitted to their secrets should not be able to guess what they are talking about. A greater discouragement to general information and interest in natural science does not exist than this, and in my humble opinion no greater service to the study of birds, beasts, fishes, insects, and flowers could be rendered by the learned than in adopting the practice of giving an English equivalent of the names they invent for all created things, so that their books might be " understanded of the common people."

Even the name Lion does not please our scientific friends ; Leo is not enough for them, Felis leo it has to be ; so that if we attempt to be accurate by their standard we should always say Cat-Lion to distinguish him from all the Dog- Lions, of which there are none. There are cat- lions, there are only cat-tigers, cat-leopards, cat-servals, and so on down to the cat - cats. With the scientific, cats come before dogs ; they are placed at the head of all the carnivora, because they are the highest organized, and have more brain power than the rest ; it is there- fore useless your discussing with them whether the cat or any cat is really cleverer than the dog or any dog.

The cat has been put first, the only point which ever gave them any difficulty to decide was whether cat or monkey was the cleverer or more highly organized. Here I think the

90 THE LION

man in the street will approve of their decision that the monkey " has it." Had it not been settled thus, man would now be in a parlous state in view of the present theories of evolution. When the learned call a class of animals " Carni- vora " they do not mean that the word should mean quite what it does mean, they do not always mean that when they say an animal is a " Flesh-eater " that it really eats flesh, because they say it in Latin, and you need not be pedantic about truth or accuracy when you use a dead language ; this is how the vegetarian bear and the seals and otters are called carnivora. They also turn some of the flesh-eaters out of the flesh- eater family — these inclusions and exclusions which appear arbitrary to the ignorant amongst us are not so really, but because the poor creature has got something the matter with its eye- holes, teeth, toes, or auditory bullae. However, it is enough that for us, Cats are the first family in the order of Carnivora, and lions are placed at the top of the lot.

Our Cat-Lion, in adult age, varies considerably in size. So many are killed by regular hunters and settlers which are never measured, not to mention the innumerable ones slain by natives, that it is impossible to say to how large a stature the lion attains.

Fortunately for us we can obtain an approxi- mate idea of their limits of stature, owing to the trouble which some hunters, like Mr. F. C. Selous,

SIZE AND WEIGHT OF LIONS 91

Mr. F. V. Kirby, and others, have taken to measure and even to weigh their lions and to record carefully these observations. From an examination of recorded measurements there appears to be little difference in the size of fine typical specimens of African and Asiatic lions. In Africa I incline to think that the lions of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco attain (or attained) in those colder countries a greater size than those of the Sudan and Central Africa, and that they again tend to be larger in the temperate climes of South Africa. The lions of North Africa fifty years ago were certainly enormous, if not always in height, generally in weight, for they lived almost entirely in many districts on the Arab flocks, and a mutton-fed lion got very fat indeed.

The cold and even wintry climates of the plateaux of the north and south of the African continent account in some measure for the greater proportion of heavy -maned lions that were found in these regions. South of the Vaal and north of the Sahara, the lion may be considered as approaching extinction. It is true, a few still survive in isolated localities, such as the forest regions of the province of Constantine and perhaps eastward into Tunisia, and in some parts of Morocco as well as in German West Africa and the Kalahari. Lions approaching 600 lb. in weight were formerly shot south of the Vaal, and exceeding this weight in Algeria if other-

92 THE LION

wise credible persons are to be believed. Un- doubtedly in some districts of Africa there is a greater proportion of big-maned lions than in others ; but wherever lions are present in numbers, fine black and fine tawny-maned lions have been obtained. For instance, in British East Africa there are much better manes to be frequently seen in such districts as the Uasin Gishu plateau and the Sotik, than, say, on the Athi Plains or in the low countries east of Simba. Yet in every district where lions abound, fine- maned lions are to be found. In thick bush and long grass countries, lions are supposed to have less mane than in more open regions, the idea being that their manes get dragged out and thinned by thorns and brambles, or that the lions scratch out their manes to clear them- selves from grass or other seeds.

What gives colour to this theory is the fact that in their lairs considerable quantities of hair, thus combed out, is often to be seen. There may be something in this, but I can certainly vouch for the fact of big-maned lions being found in very thick bush and grass countries, and I incline to think that age and climate have much to do with the production of a fine mane, also that, as among men, some lions of the same family are more hairy than others. In horses, dogs, cats, sheep, and many other animals may be found, in the same distinct breed, a great variation in the thickness, texture,

LION'S MANE AND MARKINGS 98

and length of coat — some families of the same breed being more hirsute than others.

In an article on the Mufumbiro Mountains, by Captain E. M. Jack, R.E., which appeared in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, June 1913, the writer alludes to his experiences with the Anglo-German-Belgian Boundary Commission, and remarks, a propos of lions : " Lions were plentiful in the Ruchuru Valley and in Ruanda. Seven were shot by members of the British section and four by those of the German. A lioness shot by a German officer had a mane, a rather unusual occurrence, I believe."

Formerly I used to regard the retention of the spots on a lion, which are so prominent on cubs, as an indication of youthfulness, but I have altered my opinion, as I have never shot a lion, however old, that had not these spots plainly visible, especially along the lower edge of the flanks, where the main colouring of the skin merges into the cream colour of the belly, as well as on the legs. Occasionally slight bars or faint stripes, discernible in cubs, are visible on adults and are to be looked for on the legs. Spots are said to be more distinct on lionesses than on lions. From the instances of longevity in zoological gardens and menageries, the lion may be said to have a life which extends to over thirty years and even to forty.

I have heard well-informed persons, and even

hunters, allege that there are different and 8

94 THE LION

distinct varieties of lions. They divide them into black, grey, and yellow or tawny. Natives in some lands have the same notion — for instance, the Arabs of Algeria, who class lions as either el adra, el asfar, or el zarzouri.1 The Boers distinguish two varieties, the black-maned kind (Zwart-voorlijf) and the yellow-maned kind (Geel-voorlijf).

There is no foundation at all for this super- stition, for in the same family you may have a yellow, a grey, and a black-maned lion. I have helped to kill two lions side by side the same morning and on the same spot, evidently brothers, the one grey with a black mane, the other yellow with a tawny mane ; when first I saw them they were walking together in the company of a light-coloured lioness which escaped. But it seems difficult to explode this kind of idea, and the latest one has been to divide lions into bush and plain lions, which is not worth discussing.

Even the learned among naturalists appear to lose their mental equilibrium when they get on to their hobbies of protective colouring and the like. A very eminent authority lately de- clared that because lions are tawny they probably originally lived in sandy and desert places ; he might just as well say that rhinos once lived in Coal Measures because they are black, or that some of the baboons once sat on the Mediterranean because they are blue behind.

1 Black, tawny, or grey.

PROTECTIVE COLORATION 95

Lions have, however, wandered into the desert where there is game, and some may dwell there and become lighter in colour.

Why should lions want to live in sandy and desert places ? They want to live where there is bush, and grass, and shade, and plenty to eat. The only lions which live on bare sand flats and which walk about in the Sahara are those which prowl about on the canvases of artists at the annual exhibitions of pictures. In an article by a good sportsman, in the Nineteenth Century in 1895, appears this curious passage, which sounds like the sixteenth century : " The natives told us that the colour of the skin of both rhino- ceros and lion varies with the colour of the soil. Our own short experience quite bore this out, the lions killed on dark soil having a much bluer tinge than those which we had secured on red ground." I wish he had given us some particulars of the red rhinos. What is true is that any animal, including elephants, which either roll or dust themselves in red soil, or beasts which wallow in red mud, mirabile dictu, take a reddish tinge. I have seen elephants as red as a brick church — protective colouring again, of course.

In 1909 I several times discussed with Colonel Roosevelt the fascinating subject of protective coloration, and expressed to him my view that our home scientists were making themselves ridiculous by the lengths they went

96 THE LION

in describing Nature's concealing coloration. Since then Colonel Roosevelt has written by far the best treatise I have ever come across on this question (vide Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. xxx. art. viii. pp. 119-23, August 1911).

The theorists had till then pushed their doctrine so far as to declare that the coloration of animals made wholly for obliteration, con- cealment, and protection, and had nothing to do with nuptial dress, advertisement, mimicry, or anything else. Colonel Roosevelt's triumphant exposure of this nonsense delighted my heart, as well as his extraordinarily clever manner in " nailing to the counter " their false descriptions in writing and illustration. Over and over again he takes their preposterous theory and blows it to smithereens with common sense. He quotes from one of these : " The crow's rainbow sheens, so little thought of as concealers, turn him into such true distance colours as he sits on the nest as to rank him at this moment almost with the grouse f or indistinguishability, " and points out that there is no more chance for his argument than that a coal scuttle planted in the middle of a green lawn is inconspicuous, and shows that there is nowhere and no time when the crow is anything but conspicuous. The idea that all animals that prey or are ever preyed upon are under certain normal circumstances obliterative is entirely erroneous.

•*--^ \ "*!-.

_\^\

55 O

in

i— »

K

O g

i-j

>

w

O

o

w 55 o

h4 O

U

ROOSEVELT ON COLORATION 97

" There is no conceivable color or com- bination of colors which may not under some exceptional circumstances be concealing," says Colonel Roosevelt. A British Grenadier in a red coat and a bearskin hat might find himself in some fight in a village surrounded for a moment by red and black objects — red petticoats and black skirts on a wash-line, for instance — which would make his coloration scheme protective. Colonel Roosevelt's conclusions are numerous and wrell worth study. The fact is, that no universal law can be laid down.

There is a tendency for certain general types of coloration to be found among all the birds and mammals affected by the same physical conditions. Birds and creatures of the treetops have lighter, brighter, and more varied coloration than those dwelling in more sombre and uniform surroundings near the ground and beneath forest trees. There is a tendency for arctic and alpine animals to be light coloured1 and often white, for desert birds and animals to have very pale tints, and so on, but the exceptions are numerous ; e.g. how about the musk-ox, the raven, and the wolverine in the arctic regions, or the cock ostrich and black-and-white chat in the desert ?

There are certain birds and mammals whose coloration is unquestionably concealing, e.g. night hawks and grouse.

1 Where reference is made to Colonel Roosevelt's remarks the American spelling of colour is retained.

98 THE LION I

Many birds and mammals are advertisingly colored, and often their coloration tends to reveal them to their foes. In many cases the male is advertised and the female concealed by its color, or vice versa.

" The species of birds and mammals with a complete obliterative or concealing or protective coloration are few in number compared to those which possess (either all the time, or part of the time, or in one sex for all the time or part of the time) a conspicuous or revealing or advertising coloration, and to those in which the coloration is neither especially advertising nor especially concealing."

I possess no recent printed records of the size of lions, but think an examination of such would show that there is no very great variation in their stature in different regions. It must be remembered, however, that a very small percentage of colonists or residents ever trouble themselves much about measuring their game.

1 do not suppose 2 per cent, of lions killed even by sportsmen are measured for height, and not

2 per thousand are weighed. I confess to have been too lazy to take this trouble myself, and have never been keen about record-hunting. Any ordinary sportsman should be satisfied with a fine typical specimen of the variety of game he is in search of, and there is no credit in obtain- ing " a record " through wholesale and persistent slaughter. I knew of one man, I am glad to say

RECORD-HUNTING 99

not an Englishman, who killed in one place some ninety-four Soemerring gazelle and left a plain covered with his rotting carcasses, not to mention cripples, without getting a record head. At that time, a few days north of that place, I could wander literally among the same kind of antelope, passing them at times, when they were grazing, within 10 or 12 yards, and they have but lifted their heads and gazed at me with their great black eyes without moving a leg, and resumed feeding as soon as I had gone by. Some hideous work has been done in the name of sport. It is a most legitimate ambition to secure the very finest specimen you can for your collection, and the man who refrains from shooting till he finds a specimen which satisfies his desires is not only a legitimate record-hunter but probably the very best of sportsmen. The publication of records has done good and harm, for whilst there is no doubt that it has taught many shooting men what animals alone are worthy of their attention, it has also been an incentive to others to continual shooting in order to get up on the list. There is little doubt that finer specimens of most beasts have been and are still secured by men who are as indifferent to, as they are ignorant about, any published measurements.

It is impossible to fix how big the largest lion is. This, however, can be said, that if you run the tape over a lion lying dead on the ground as he

100 THE LION

fell, without " pulling him out," he is a very long one if he measures over 10 feet from the tip of his nose to the tip of his brush.1 In this over- all measurement the tail counts for much, and a short-bodied lion may have a long tail and a long- bodied one a short tail. I have shot three or four lions about 9 feet 4 inches measured thus, but none longer. Lord Wolverton's measurement of a Somali lion, 10 feet 7 inches, is very startling, but with the aid of a little imagination it is possible to conceive of a lion even longer. A pegged skin measurement is not much to go on unless average width is fairly taken into account, and there has been no undue stretching. You can without much manipulation make the skin 2 feet longer than when it was on the body. A lion 3 feet 7 inches high is a very tall one, though, I believe, 4 feet has been recorded, and one whose arm girths 19 inches is a very strong one, and one that weighs over 400 lb. is a very heavy one. In fact, if you kill a lion weighing twice the weight of a good Scotch stag he should be a fairly fine one, yet some are said to have weighed as much as three such stags, viz. over 40 stone.

A lioness over 9 feet in length is a very long one, over 3 feet 3 inches high a tall one, and

1 I have a note of the measurement of an Algerian lion, but unfortunately cannot quote my authority. It was as follows : from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail, 2*50 metres ; length of tail, 75 cm. (total length, 10 feet 7} inches) ; height behind from foot to the top of quarters, 95 cm., or about 3 feet 1$ inches.

PREPONDERANCE OF LIONESSES 101

over 300 lb. in weight a very heavy one. Tigers do not run to any greater sizes, though many have been shot over 10 feet in length, and a very few over 3 feet 6 inches in height, and very few indeed over 500 lb. in weight. The lion's skull is on the average longer than the tiger's, but the skulls in average breadth are about equal. When this has been said, there is not much to choose in point of average size between adult lions and tigers.

The skull of the lion can be distinguished from that of the tiger by the fact that the posterior processes of the nasal bones do not or only just extend as far as the frontal processes of the maxillae, and that the distance between the anterior parietal suture and the post orbital process is comparatively short, so that the lion's skull may be described as short-waisted as compared with the long-waisted skull of the tiger (Sclater).

Some of the best authorities state that females preponderate largely over males. I have little doubt that this alleged disparity in numbers between lions and lionesses is the result of better observation and inquiry than my own.1 I can only say that of the scores of lions I have seen I should estimate only one in seven or eight to have been a lioness — this may be pure chance. I am under the impression that two lions at least are shot for every lioness,

1 Vide Major Stevenson-Hamilton's Notes, p. 115.

102 THE LION

but then most sportsmen when encountering several lions would probably shoot at the largest. Firms like the Boma Trading Co., and Messrs. Newland & Tarlton, at Nairobi, through whose hands pass hundreds of lion skins annually, could give good evidence upon this point.

The generally accepted theory is that a lion, like a bishop, must be the husband of one wife. I am not sure about this, for a lion is sometimes seen in the company of several ladies, and a lady in the company of several gentlemen, which latter fact might be considered to argue for a theory of polyandry. Where lions are not very numerous, probably they are more frequently found in pairs, or a lion, lioness, and one or two cubs. I have seen real, or grass, widow lionesses with one or more cubs. It is not uncommon to see a lion, a lioness with two young lions, and one or two cubs in a family party; and several times I have come across two old lions and a lioness living and hunting together. I really do not know exactly what to make out of their marital relations, but there is no doubt that a lion often evinces quite the proper amount of faithfulness and affection for the particular lady of his choice for the time being, and will hunt for her and the young family. The lioness is credited with even greater devotion to her spouse, so much so that many hunters, when they come across a lion and lioness together, shoot the lioness first, on the assumption that if you kill the lion

/

BEHAVIOUR OF LIONESSES 103

the lioness will charge straight and at once, whereas if you shoot the lioness the lion will probably stand by and, before making off, stop to smell the lioness, and when he has satisfied himself that there is not much use in staying any longer he may " clear."

The only personal experience that I can call to mind affecting this question is the following : I once tracked up to a lion and a lioness in Somali bush country; when; after an hour's fast walk on their spoor, I first caught sight of them they were going along freely, apparently quite unconscious that their steps were being dogged. The lioness was leading, and the lion about 5 yards behind. I ran forward in a line parallel with them until I was a little ahead, and I pulled up opposite a narrow glade in the bush which they must cross in full view of me ; there they came, crossing my front at about 60 yards, slouching along with lowered heads ; the lioness passed and then the lion was passing. I fired at his shoulder and hit him high in the ribs ; he immediately sat up like a gigantic dog begging, but made the ground shake with his rage. I at once opened my gun (a heavy 10-bore shot-and-ball gun) to reload the empty chamber — a precaution worth taking with a double-barrelled weapon when- ever possible, so as to secure having two barrels ready in case of trouble. Whilst I was reloading, with an eye on the wounded lion, my shikari at my elbow said, " Look at the other one ! " and

104 THE LION

there to my surprise, close at my right hand, was the lioness, with her eyes fixed on me with a most dreadfully intent expression and her tail absolutely vertical and as stiff as a poker. I hesitated for a moment as to which to shoot at, but the lion was up and turning towards me, and I gave him the right barrel, only hitting him in the forearm. Luckily, as I thought on subsequent reflection, the great bang of the 10- bore and belch of blue smoke were too much for his fair lady's nerves, for at this shot she bolted, and I wanted my second barrel for the lion, who came straight for me at a shambling gallop — though crippled, so that he lurched as he came, he was determined to get home. At very close range I dropped him dead with a bullet fair between his eyes. It seems to me possible that with a modern rifle with less noise and no smoke this lioness would not have been scared, as she undoubtedly was by the loud report of a big gun in the silent jungle with a heavy charge of black powder. A Somali lion is often so accustomed to the yells of men and to being pelted with stones and firebrands in his nightly raids into native karias that he will take but little notice of the mere noise and flash of firearms. At night at any rate, lions will return to a bait or to your camp time after time after they have been fired at. The foregoing is only a slight indication of what the conduct of an unwounded lioness is likely to be when her mate is attacked.

LIONESSES AND CUBS 105

As to the behaviour of lionesses with cubs, nothing is certain. I have seen a lioness allow her cubs to go away while she skulked behind ; I have fled on my horse from an angry lioness which I had done nothing to provoke, and whose black-maned mate stared stolidly at me with an expression of indifference on his counten- ance, a sort of savage query in his eyes as to what all the grunting and fury on the part of his lady was about. The following instance, I think, is characteristic of the way in which a lioness will stick to her baby : — One morning my wife, my daughter, and my neighbour, Mr. H. D. Hill, were out riding in British East Africa, when I viewed the finest lioness I ever saw (I was riding about a mile to the right of the rest of the party) ; she was walking sedately along, followed by a single and tiny little cub. I waved a signal to Hill and the ladies, and she detected the movement from 500 yards away — till then I do not think she had seen me. She imme- diately popped into a large bush, very thick and about 15 yards square, which spread across a small dry-stream bed, the banks of which were a few feet high. Here she took such complete cover both from sight and from the danger of being shot by a chance ball, that nothing we could do would dislodge her. In turn we tried galloping past, shouting insults at her, firing volleys into every part of the bush ; only once did she ever show herself, when she dashed out

106 THE LION

for one second at Hill with a savage grunt. He was close to her, and his horse swung and his ball fell short. This was the only attempt she made to bluff us, she had not the least intention of coming into the open or of deserting her infant, and the rest of the day she never so much as growled or snarled once. The siege went on, and all attempts to drive or tempt her out having failed, we fired the dry grass around the bush as a last resource. The fire licked up all round the bush, and flames and smoke swept over it, but never shook her resolution even when they scorched the green leaves above her hiding- place. After hours of exertion, with ammuni- tion nearly exhausted, we gave it up, completely defeated.

I do not think any one could possibly have got this lioness without crawling up the bottom of the furrow — a performance quite beyond our courage. I felt so much admiration for her devotion to the little cub and for the wisdom of her tactics, that my desire to slay the murder- ing old thing was cooled as I pictured in my mind the tiny creature sheltering in there by its mighty mother.

The period of gestation is about fifteen weeks; the cubs (two to four) are said to be always born with their eyes open. In Central and East Africa I think two litters a year not at all uncommon. In South Africa this is less frequent, and the cubs are born as a

THE VITALITY OF LIONS 107

rule in the summer between November and March.1

Finally, as to the vitality of lions, let me warn the reader against an allegation that appears in some of the best works on the mammals of Africa, viz. that the lion is " not tenacious of life, and is easily killed as compared with the larger antelopes." The lion is a cat and has all the vitality of the cats. I have seen them get away with the most awful wounds and drilled with bullets. I have put into a lion, at from 60 to 20 yards range, six 10- bore bullets solid soft-lead and hollow-point, two 500 solid soft-lead bullets, and two *256 bluff-point Mannlicher bullets before he would lie down, and finished him finally, after one of my gun-bearers had loosed off one or more Snider bullets into his body, with a shot in the neck. The only possible foundation for the idea that the lion is more easily killed than an antelope is that he is as a rule tackled at much closer quarters than an antelope, gets the full force of the bullet, and possibly that greater pains are taken to aim at the vital spots in a dangerous animal.

The reader is referred to page 214, where he will find a good illustration of the vitality of a fighting lion tackled by good and experienced shots.

1 Vide Major J. Stevenson-Hamilton's Notes, pp. 116 to 120. What he states may be taken as the latest and most authoritative information on this point. See also Mr. A. L. Butler's Notes, P. 137-

108 THE LION

Mr. Rainsbeck in his Land of the Lion gives examples of what lionesses can do — and he considers a lioness at least 100 per cent, more dangerous than a lion.

One is a case that occurred near Donya Sabuk, in the bend of the Athi River, when two men galloped a lioness and lost her in shortish grass and approached too near to look for her. In an instant she was on them, carrying Mr. G. from his pony and biting him through and through the thigh. Then like a flash turned on Mr. L., whom she dashed down with a claw wound across the face which destroyed one eye and cut through the nose. As she stood on the unfortunate L., mauling his shoulder, Mr. G. crawled up, wounded as he was, and blew her brains out. Mr. L. died a few days afterwards.

Mr. Rainsbeck makes a rather dangerous statement when he declares : " Nineteen times out of twenty, however, a lion comes slowly when he charges." I have seen a good many charges, but all have been terrific. He adds : " He sometimes stands for a moment before finally closing." This may be the experience of others, it is not mine, but I have no doubt the statement can be supported and I certainly believe it possible. I do not accept all Mr. Rainsbeck says as gospel, as, for instance, when he declares the Indian lion to be maneless, for I have seen lions, killed in India, with quite fair manes.

CHAPTER VII

THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIONS

The above sketch map attempts to indicate the distribution of lions throughout the world in recent times, and the only areas in which lions are likely to be found now.

It is difficult to find reliable information as to the present distribution of the lion in Arabia, Persia, and towards the Afghan and Indian frontiers, and also as to some parts of Asia Minor. They cer- tainly still exist in Mesopotamia between the lower Tigris and Euphrates, and are said to be numerous in certain districts of Southern Persia.

I find in my notes on the fauna of Asia

110 THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIONS

Minor, made during a journey in that country in 1891, the following : —

The lion is no longer found in Asia Minor, but it exists in Mesopotamia and Arabistan, between Poelis, west of Aleppo, and Deyr, and in the Euphrates Valley, where it frequents the impenetrable thickets growing in places along the banks and on the islands in the river ; it is also found in the lower part of the Karun River, but is nowhere plentiful. It is asserted that there are two varieties, one with a mane and the other maneless ; the latter variety is called the maneless Babylonian lion.

In India they are surviving in a few localities, such as Kathiawar in small numbers ; there may be odd ones in Rajputana. A generation ago they were comparatively common about Jodhpur, Oodeypur, Gwalior, Goona, Kota, Mount Abu, and Lalolpur.

In 1830 lions were common near Ahmedabad. The last lion to be killed in the Allahabad country is said to have been killed in 1864.

Formerly lions ranged as far west as Greece and Roumania, and at some remote period were distributed over Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and the British Isles. Such remains of Felis leo as have been found in Pleistocene formations of the temperate regions of the Old World indicate animals of a larger size than any surviving in the warmer regions where the lion is now found.

In North Africa lions up to the time when

THE LION IN NORTH AFRICA 111

firearms were freely distributed, and even up to the occupation of Algeria by the French, were very numerous in suitable countries. By the middle of the last century their numbers had been greatly diminished. This decrease was largely due to the high price placed on their heads by the Turkish Government in the Barbary States, a policy continued on a smaller scale by the French in the countries conquered by France.1 Their favourite haunts, within the memory of man, were the forest-clad hills and mountains between the Ouarsenis on the west, the Pic de Taza on the east, the Djebel Ennedate on the south, and the plain of the Chelif to the north. There were also many lions among the forests and wooded hills of the province of Constantine and eastwards into Tunisia and south into the Aures ; the cedar forests of Chelia and neighbour- ing mountains harboured lions down to about 1884. In addition to the native lions of Algeria, " Berranis," i.e. " foreign wandering lions " as the Arabs called them, wandered over the country from Dir Guezoul, Djebel Dira, and Zakkar. When first I knew Algeria there were occasional lions in the Dju Djura, the Aures, along the Tunisian border countries, and throughout the region from La Calle to Soukarras. A European whose name and nationality has slipped my

1 Two tribes which devoted themselves to lion-hunting, viz. the Ouled Meloul and the Ouled Cessi, were freed under the Turks from all taxation, and were paid liberally for skins.

112 THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIONS

memory, though I think he was a Russian hunter, killed a large number of lions between 1880 and 1895 in the neighbourhood of Soukarras. During the nineties I myself hunted almost the whole range of the Atlas from the Oued Chair in the west to beyond Tamerza in Tunisia, and visited likely mountains to the north of the Aures, like Chelia, and never came across a single lion track. The last lions I heard of in Algeria were some distance to the north of Bordj bou Arreredj, in 1899. Since 1900 I have hardly hunted at all in Algeria. The Algerian lions preyed on flocks and herds, and it was no uncommon thing for them to become man-eaters of the boldest and most accomplished kind ; Gerard, who himself slew some thirty lions between 1848 and 1856, relates how one lion exterminated the population of a douar (the tribal assembly of tents), killing forty Arabs, and he calculated that one single tribe, of about one hundred tents, suffered in losses of horses, cattle, and sheep, from the depredations of lions, an amount equal to a tax of £8400 a year. Between 1873 and 1883, that is, in the decade immediately preceding my first visit to Algiers, the Government return of lions killed (the Government grant being then 50 francs a skin) was as follows : —

Algeria . . . .29

Constantine . . .173

Oran . . . . 0

Total . 202

Si

THE LION IN SOUTH AFRICA 113

The following figures show how the numbers diminished : —

Number Killed.

1878 . . . .29

1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884

22 16 6 4 3 1

The following dates mark approximately the retreat of the lion from existence in South Africa : —

1707. Lions not uncommon near Cape Town.

1801. Lions still met with in the Karoo and Witenhage.

1842. Last lion south of the Orange River (recorded by Hall and quoted by Sclater) killed near Commetjes Post.

1865. Last lion killed in Natal by General Bisset (Sclater).

1898 and 1898. Lions killed at Springs (near Johannesburg) and Heidleburg.

1903. Occasional lions still seen and killed in the Transvaal outside the Game Reserves, and common within the Reserve and in Portuguese East Africa. During my residence in the Barberton District, 1903 to 1905, I several times saw lion spoor in the neighbourhood of Kaapmuiden and

114 THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIONS

Komati Poort, and noted the follow- ing occurrences outside the Reserve in the Barberton District : —

1904. Seven lions seen at Malelane.

1 lion killed by Pains near Kaap- muiden.

Several seen at Hector Spruit.

Others seen on the railway at various times by engine-drivers between Crocodile Poort and Komati Poort.

One seen near Low's Creek. (This name is Leuw's Creek, i.e. Lion's Creek — a lion-haunted vallev when the Dutch first arrived.)

1905. Three seen at Mananga.

Others reported between Hector Spruit and Mananga. 1913. The lion is still found in Zululand, the Eastern Transvaal, German South- West Africa, the Kalahari, Rhodesia, and Portuguese East Africa.

Major J. Stevenson-Hamilton, writing to me from the Sabi Game Reserve, Komatipoort, on the 1st July 1913, gives the following interesting information : —

" As regards your questions, I cannot give you any reliable statistics as to the number of lions accounted for in the Transvaal outside the Game Reserves, as there are none available. I should say, however, that the number killed does not

J

MAJ. STEVENSON-HAMILTON'S NOTES 115

exceed half a dozen annually, and I doubt if it even reaches this figure. Within the Reserves the total accounted for to end of the present month since 1903 is 190, the totals being as follows : 1903, 6 ; 1904, 2 ; 1905, 10 ; 1906, 13 ; 1907, 13 ; 1908, 21 ; 1909, 25 ; 1910, 21 ; 1911, 32 ; 1912, 36 ; 1913, 11 (to end of May). Sexes about equal in numbers.

" Up to 1905 we administered only about one- fourth of the area now under control, which partly accounts for the divergence of the present figures. Naturally, as time went on, haunts became better known, and the staff more efficient. Numbers are probably a little less than they were a few years ago, but there is no danger of extermination.

" Outside the Reserves I should say the animals were probably slightly increasing where the big game is not poached, as they are seldom shot; elsewhere where game is decreasing the lions take toll of donkeys and cattle, and are now and then shot or poisoned ; but, take it all round, the majority of the public have, as they say them- selves, ' not lost any lions.'

" I have never weighed a big lion, I am sorry to say. The average full-grown lion here in the Eastern Transvaal measures about 9 feet 6 inches over all before skinning, and the lioness about 12 inches less. They are of all sorts, black-maned and yellow-maned, and entirely or almost entirely maneless in the same localities, though I think they tend to be fuller maned on

116 THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIONS

the whole in the south. The same as to body colour, from extremely light to very swarthy. Full-grown lionesses of over three or four years old sometimes show quite distinct spots, and others have no vestige of them. I have noticed the same divergence in young animals under a year old from the same troop. I have the skins of three cubs of six months old from the same litter, two males and a female, and none are quite similar either in hue or spotting.

" I have never seen or been apprised of any cases of albinism here, though some lionesses are certainly extremely light in hue, nor have I heard of any cases of melanism, though I have shot one or two extremely swarthy males.

" Now as to the extremely important and much-vexed question of breeding of lions, I hope you won't take anything amiss I may say, should it disagree with your own great experience, but this is a matter I have been studying very care- fully on the spot for some eight years, and I find my views are largely in disagreement with many of those popularly held.

"In 1905 Dr. Gunning of the Pretoria Museum was intending to give a lecture on the subject of periods of gestation in wild animals, and, talking the matter over with him, I deter- mined to ascertain as far as possible whether lions (and larger carnivora generally) bred annually in a wild state as they do in captivity. It had always seemed to me that, seeing that these

■ i«» i»

MAJ. STEVENSON-HAMILTON'S NOTES 117

animals produce three or four in a litter, of which two generally reach maturity, in the course of ages, before firearms and even man at all came on the scene, they would have increased out of all proportion to the herbivora which have only one offspring annually if they bred as often as the latter. This was of course only a rough specula- tion, because on reflection it is obvious that when they had reached a certain point there would be nothing more to eat for the large majority of lions, and so they would mostly die of starvation or fail to mature, and Nature would have had to make a practically fresh start from the few remains of the herbivores and carnivores. But I think from deduction of what little we know we may assume that such cataclysms have not been the general case at least.

"Again, lions (and leopards and chitas) are not independent within a few months of birth, as are the herbivorous ungulates generally. They are, on the contrary, very weak and helpless for a long time, and even after they have acquired strength they accompany their mothers in hunting and act under their mother's tuition. I do not think Nature allows the mother to renew maternity until her last offspring are quite independent of her, and in the case of lions this certainly does not occur until their large canines are well developed and they have learned to kill large game unassisted. I don't think eighteen months is too long a time to allow. We can't judge in

118 THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIONS

the least by the methods of captivity, where conditions are absolutely opposed to the wild state, and where the future of the young ones is amply provided for even if they are not taken from their mother as soon as weaned, in which case, of course, she would be quite ready for a new family.

" Since 1905 I have had so far as possible all the full-grown lionesses killed opened, and care- fully examined, and the result has been that only comparatively a small minority have been found either to be in milk or to have embryos inside. Some of the negative cases when killed had been accompanied by male lions and by one or more big cubs of at least a year old, so that if their habit had been to breed annually they would have shown it by the embryo, or, by containing milk, have proved that they probably had small cubs secreted somewhere.

" I am therefore very strongly of the opinion, which I base both on what seems to me to be most in accordance with natural design for due balance, and on the practical study I have given to the matter, that lions, here at all events, not only do not breed twice annually, but seldom oftener than once biennially (excepting only in the case of a lioness which has lost all her cubs of the last litter).

" I am aware that this is opposed to the general belief, which I take it is largely based on observa- tions in captivity, but on the other hand I doubt

MAJ. STEVENSON-HAMILTON'S NOTES 119

if many hunters have had the opportunities of going into the matter under natural conditions as I have, or have kept records in the same way.

" You will find some statistics on the subject in my book, Animal Life in Africa, as well as some other points about lions as they have seemed to me here.

" Now as regards size of litters, the average here certainly seems to be three or four, judging from embryos taken from lionesses, but two have not been infrequent. Latterly, however, that is in the last three or four years, four seems to be a common number; whether this is chance or whether the extremely easy manner in which lions can now get food — since the game has increased so largely and their own numbers have been artificially kept down — has increased breed- ing power, I cannot say, but this much is certain, that whereas seven or eight years ago lionesses with cubs seldom were found with more than two and more often one only, now it is not uncommon to see four well-grown cubs with a single lioness. This seems a very interesting illustration of the way in which Nature, as it were, gets her own back on man. We destroy the enemies of the herbi- vora as much as we can and leave the latter alone. Nature, by providing a correspondingly increased food supply for the lions, sees to it that a larger proportion of the offspring shall survive than is the case under absolutely natural con- ditions !

.

120 THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIONS

" A side result has been that native stock (and our own) in the game country is perfectly safe, and such a thing as a raid, except very occasion- ally by a more or less decrepit animal, is almost unheard of. On the other hand, outside the Game Reserve in the Zoutspansberg district for instance, and just outside our western boundary, stock-killing is quite common, because there is hardly anything bigger than reedbuck, and lions which have strayed a bit out of their usual beat find themselves driven by hunger.

" The most usual time for cubs of lions to be born here is during July and August (especially August), but they are certainly born all through the months from March to November in lesser numbers, and I have records of young cubs seen, or lionesses containing embryos which would have been born soon, for every month in the year.

" I have so far no reports of more than four cubs to a litter."

In North-East Africa there are lions to the north of the Bogos country, and here and there right through Erithrea to the Tackazi and west- wards, and south into the Sudan. In the Blue Nile districts, as well as on both sides of the White Nile, lions are plentiful enough, and are to be met with in almost all districts of the Sudan. In Abyssinia they must be getting very scarce, but on all sides of the Ethiopian plateau

1

GALLA COUNTRIES, SOMALILAND 121

they generally abound ; through the Galla countries and to the south they are said to be practically ubiquitous, till you reach those parts of South Africa where the white settlers have wiped them out. Of West Africa I know nothing personally, and cannot state where they are most numerous or where they are becoming scarce.

SOMALILAND

In 1905 Colonel Swayne, the British Com- missioner for the British Somali Coast Pro- tectorate, estimated the number of lions then in British Somaliland at about three thousand. Since 1905 the British Government have aban- doned most of our possessions and fellow-subjects to our victorious enemv, the Mullah, and the country to anarchy. The Somalis have acquired firearms, and probably the lions within this area and outside have been greatly reduced, not only directly but by the wholesale slaughter of the game on which the lions subsisted.

The Sudan

Mr. A. L. Butler, the Superintendent of the Sudan Government Game Department, has most kindly furnished me with the following informa- tion. These notes are of so much interest that with his permission I publish them in full.

122 THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIONS NOTES ON THE LION IN THE SUDAN

By A. L. Butler, Esq.

1. Present Distribution

For the past twelve years — since 1901 — I have kept a map to show the distribution of the lion in the Sudan, and marked on it every place where they have been shot or met with as far as my information goes. The following notes, taken from this map, may therefore be con- sidered a fairly reliable sketch of the range of the species in this part of Africa : —

Prince Henry of Liechtenstein has told me that in 1880 he came on the tracks of a lion in a wadi about half-way between Berber and Suakin (about 19° N. Latitude and 36° E. Longitude). The killing of one west of and near the Nile, north of Berber (18° North), is, I believe, within the memory of old native inhabitants. But at the present day the northern limit of the lion's range seems to be about midway between 16° and 17° North Latitude. South of this, lions occur on the Atbara from near Goz Regeb to Gallabat, at . Filik (about 50 miles north of Kassala), on the Khor Baraka, the Gash, the Setit, and the Bahr el Salaam. In this district they are most numerous on the Atbara near Mogatta, and on the Setit, and appear to have increased in numbers within the last twelve years.

On the Blue Nile and its tributaries, the Rahad and the Dinder, they are fairly plentiful south of

MR. A. L. BUTLER ON SUDAN LIONS 123

Sennar, within a short distance of which place they still put in an occasional appearance. They are perhaps most abundant on the Rahad, from which river they sometimes wander north- wards to El Fou and Gedaref, where one was shot in September 1906.

On the Blue Nile they are most plentiful on the west bank.

On the White Nile they range north to Jebelein, where there are generally a few about near the hill, and I have once known of tracks being found north of Kosti. Mr. Seton-Karr met with four males together on the west bank near Renk this year, and shot all of them. South of this they are fairly common between Renk, Jebel Ahmed Aga, and Kaka. Between Kaka and Taufikia they are scarce, owing to the openness of the country and the abundance of Shilluk villages. Near Tonga round Lake No, and along the Bahr el Ghazal they are numerous. They are particularly abundant on the Zeraf River (where four were killed simultaneously by a volley from a steamer last year !), and also occur on the Sobat, Pibor, and Akobo.

On the Bahr el Jebel they are absent in the " Sudd " region between Lake No and Shambe, but doubtless inhabit the dry country at the back of these vast swamps. South of Shambe they occur on both banks of the Nile to Rejaf, and range across the country eastwards to the Pibor'and Akobo.

124 THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIONS

West of the Upper Nile the lion ranges practically all over the Bahr el Ghazal Province, and is found in the vicinity of nearly all the numerous small rivers (which are too numerous to mention in detail), and north all along the Bahr el Arab. I find my map is fairly well sprinkled with record marks between 25° and 31° East, and 5° and 10° North.

Farther north again their extension into Kordofan lies mainly between 28° and 30° East, to a little above the 11th parallel.

Very considerably north of this, however, lions occur again sparingly out west in the Wadi Milh (about 15° North and 28° 30' East), and I have heard of tracks being met with near El Ein, just south of the 16th parallel. This brings their northward range west of the Nile nearly into line with their northern limit in the Eastern Sudan, as previously described. A cub of these desert-dwelling lions was brought to me three years ago from the Wadi Milh, and its remarkably pale coloration is referred to else- where in these notes.

To sum up, while west of the Nile the range of the lion lies mainly south of 10° North Latitude, on the east it is well distributed for some 5° farther north.

2. Variations in Type, etc,

Sudan lions generally have very poor manes. In the east of the country (Atbara, Setit, Rahad,

MR. A. L. BUTLER ON SUDAN LIONS 125

Dinder, etc. — thorny bush-country) the mane is usually not more than a scanty ruff, and nearly always of a yellow colour. Lions that I have seen shot in the Bahr el Ghazal Province near Wau were much the same in general appearance. I have seen some moderately well-maned skins from the Blue Nile.1 There is often more development of the mane, with a mixture of black in it, on the open grass country near Lake No, on the Bahr el Ghazal, Bahr el Arab, and Zeraf, but here again a meagre yellow ruff only is not infrequent. I have only once, several years ago, seen a lion with a really fine mane in the Sudan, and this, curiously enough, was on the Rahad River. This was a regular picture- book lion, by far the finest I have ever seen, with a really magnificent mane of a blackish or very dark colour, and a dark greyish body. Though I was able to watch him through glasses on two evenings in succession I could not get a satisfactory shot at him. I do not think this splendid beast was ever shot. Certainly, no skin with such a mane has since come through Khartoum.

Cubs appear, as a rule, to be darkest farther south. I have seen them from the neighbour-

1 In African Nature Notes, p. 76, Mr. Selous figures three lions showing different developments of mane.

His No. 3 would best represent the majority of Sudan lions I have seen. The best manes I have seen might be as well developed as in his No. 1, or perhaps a little less so. The big black-maned lion I saw on the Rahad looked quite as good as No. 2.

10

126 THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIONS

hood of Lado with a dorsal line and the spots almost black.

Very different was a cub brought in to me three years ago from Wadi Milh (15° North, 28° 30' East), in Western Kordofan. This was a remarkably pale whitish, sandy, or isabelline colour, with the back of the ears and tail tuft grey instead of black, and with only faint traces of spots. Its appearance suggested that the desert-dwelling lions of this region are coloured much like the smaller mammals (hares, mice, etc.) of sandy deserts. I should very much like to see an adult lion from this locality.

On the whole, I do not think I could recognize with any degree of certainty the locality of a lion from its appearance, unless perhaps it was a cub from the south or a lion from the north- western desert.

I have never known of a case of albinism or melanism.

3. The Food of Lions

The staple food of the lion varies a good deal in different districts, according to the nature of the country and the game found in it. You say that your experience was that round Lake No they fed principally on white-eared cob. This is quite correct, and applies equally to the Zeraf River and the Bahr el Ghazal. I would add that the victims seem to be almost always

MR. A. L. BUTLER ON SUDAN LIONS 127

adult males. They scatter about more than the females, and are therefore doubtless more easy to stalk singly.

Where cattle, goats, and sheep are plentiful, as on the Atbara, Rahad, Blue Nile, and lower White Nile, they are preyed on a good deal. These domestic animals are generally shut up in zaribas by night, but lions which have taken to cattle-lifting become pretty bold in attacking them by day. At one time and another, a good many losses have been sustained among Govern- ment transport bulls in the Bahr el Ghazal. In the Eastern Sudan camels frequently fall victims. In 1900 two lions killed a camel on a path near the village of Sofi on the Atbara, and remained on it, holding up all-comers, until the late Colonel Collin son, then Governor of the Kassala Pro- vince, happened to ride up on a favourite shooting pony and promptly shot them both from the saddle. I have twice known of a camel being killed near El Fou, between the Blue Nile and Gedaref, one of them by a single lion. On one occasion an Arab came