CHAPTER XVII

THE LION IN SOUTH AFRICA

BY F. C. SELOUS

In those districts of Southern Africa made historic by the stirring narratives of Sir Cornwallis Harris and Gordon Cumming, where but half a century ago every species of wild game native to that part of the world, from the ponderous elephant to the graceful springbuck, was to be met with in such surprising numbers that vast tracts of country assumed the appearance of huge zoological gardens, one may now travel for days without seeing a single wild animal. In British Bechuanaland the elephant and the rhinoceros are as extinct as the mammoth in England, and the myriads of zebras and antelopes which Sir Cornwallis Harris saw daily scouring the plains in commingled herds are now only represented by a few scattered hartebeests, blesbucks, and gemsbucks, which still exist in the country bordering on the Kalahari desert. The high veldt of the Transvaal too, once black with innumerable herds of wildebeests, blesbucks, and springbucks, is at the present day for the sportsman or the naturalist a dreary waste, more devoid of animal life probably than any other sparsely populated country in the world. With the antelopes and buffaloes the beasts of prey have disappeared too, and in many districts where fifty years ago the magnificent music of the lion’s roar was the traveller’s constant lullaby, no sound now disturbs the silence of the night, except indeed the ceaseless rattle of the quartz-crushing machinery in the mining districts.

[Illustration: A GROUP OF SOUTH AFRICAN ANTELOPES]

Yet, in spite of the total disappearance of the game in certain districts, it would be a great mistake to say that there is no more big game in Southern Africa; for if we take, as I think one fairly may, South Africa to mean all the country south of the great Zambesi river, then with the single exception of the true quagga (_Equus quagga_), which is undoubtedly extinct, every wild animal encountered by travellers in the early part of this century may still be met with; for the great square-mouthed rhinoceros (_R. Simus_) yet lingers in northern Mashonaland; elephants and black rhinoceros (_R. bicornis_) are still numerous in certain districts; whilst as for buffaloes, zebras, and various species of antelopes, it is difficult to believe that these animals ever existed in greater numbers in Bechuanaland than may still be seen in South-Eastern Africa, in the neighbourhood of the Pungwe river. Here, too, lions are still numerous; so much so that during a period of six weeks spent by the writer in this district last year, 1892, not one single night passed that they were not heard roaring, whilst upon several occasions three or four different troops of them roared round the camp at the same time.

As it is impossible within the limits of a single chapter to give a detailed account of all the rich and varied fauna of South Africa, I will now proceed to say a few words concerning the animal to which I have twice referred, and whose skin is the trophy most coveted by sportsmen. I am often asked, ‘Is the lion a dangerous beast, or is he a cur?’ This is a difficult question to answer, for not only do lions differ much individually in character--one when encountered showing himself to be an animal of a very cowardly nature, whilst another may prove to be very bold and savage--but it would even seem that the disposition of lions, in general, varies in the different large areas of country over which they range. Nothing has struck me more than the different behaviour exhibited by lions encountered in Eastern Africa during several years of travel by a friend of my own and those which I have myself met with in South Africa. My friend is a careful naturalist, an experienced hunter, and a man of absolute reliability, and what he has told me concerning the lions he has met with in Eastern Africa is so different from my own experience that I can only conclude that, speaking generally, those animals differ, as I say, in character in different portions of the continent; and if that is the case, my remarks will only apply to lions in Southern Africa.

I ought first to say, however, that though my experience of lions is considerable, it is not as great as many people might suppose. I have never missed an opportunity of shooting them when it presented itself, but I have never systematically hunted these animals. Thus, although I have spent twenty years in the wilds of Africa, I have only shot twenty-five lions when entirely by myself, though besides these I have assisted at the shooting of eleven others, and helped to skin eight more in which there were no bullets of mine. The greatest number of lions I have shot in one season is only seven. Altogether this is a very poor record compared to the prodigious bags of lions made of late years in Somaliland by Colonel Arthur Paget, Lord Delamere, Colonel Curtis, Lord Wolverton and other English sportsmen; though I think that there are portions of South-Eastern Africa where equally large bags might be made, if one devoted oneself systematically to lion hunting. Such as my experience has been, however, I will give it.

When lions are encountered in the daytime, they will almost invariably give way before the presence of man, even when several are together feeding upon the carcase of an animal they have just killed, and at a time when they are presumably hungry. In parts of the country where firearms have been much used, lions will sometimes retreat so rapidly when they are disturbed that it is next to an impossibility to get a shot at one. I remember one cold cloudy winter’s morning in Mashonaland coming suddenly upon a male lion, as he was chasing a small herd of koodoo cows. When he observed me, he at once stopped and gazed fixedly at me for just one instant of time, and then, wheeling round, went off through the forest at such a pace that, had I not been well mounted, I should never have seen him again. As it was I galloped after him, and when he found that my horse was gaining on him, he stopped and stood at bay, when I shot him. In parts of the country where they have been but little disturbed, lions will only walk slowly away when unexpectedly encountered in the daytime, often turning round and gazing fixedly at the intruder, and sometimes growling savagely and twitching their tails angrily the while. A lioness with cubs, or a savage lion feeding at a carcase, will occasionally come rushing forwards when disturbed, with every demonstration of anger, and an apparent determination to charge home. But in the great majority of even these exceptional cases such a demeanour would be nothing more than a demonstration, only made in order to frighten the intruder away; and if the man were to stand his ground, the lion would retreat. I remember an instance of this. Two friends of mine having shot some elephants on a Saturday, resolved to take a rest on the following day. Early on the Sunday morning some of their Kafirs having gone up to cut some meat from the carcase of one of the elephants, returned with the news that there was a lion there that would not let them come near it. Wood and Clarkson thereupon at once took their heavy old muzzle-loading elephant guns, the only weapons they possessed, and went to investigate. As they approached the carcase, Clarkson told me they could see nothing of the intruder and thought he had decamped, but when they were still some hundred and fifty yards distant, a magnificent dark-maned lion suddenly appeared from behind the dead elephant, and came rushing towards them, holding his head low between his shoulders, twitching his tail from side to side and growling savagely, and looking as if he meant to charge home. He only came on for about fifty yards however, and then stood growling, and, as my friends said, looked grand in his fury.

Clarkson had dropped on his knee to get a steadier shot with his heavy elephant gun, but Wood, who was an old and very experienced hunter, said, ‘Don’t fire, Matt; let him come nearer.’ Clarkson thereupon took his gun from his shoulder and waited. Suddenly he told me the lion, after having stood for some seconds looking the picture of rage and determination not to give way, stopped growling, and turning quickly round, made a bolt through the forest, past the carcase of the elephant, just as hard as he could go. No one fired at him, as heavy elephant guns were not suitable weapons for shooting quickly at a comparatively small animal moving rapidly amongst the stems of trees, and so this lion got off scot free. He had only tried to frighten my friends away from the carcase at which he was feeding, but whether if a single unarmed man had come near him he might not have bitten him it is hard to say. During the second year of the occupation of Mashonaland, a prospector named Jones, having lost a donkey, walked out from Salisbury along the main road to look for it. Before he had proceeded far, and when he was still in sight of the huts and houses of the township, he came upon a dead donkey lying near the roadside, and thinking it might be the animal he was in search of, went to examine it, when a lioness by whom the ass had been killed, and who was lying near the carcase, sprang upon him, and seizing him by the shoulder, with her teeth dragged him to the ground, and stood over him growling. Fortunately for Mr. Jones, a young colonist named Swanapool, a lad only fourteen years of age, was at that moment coming along the road with a rifle in his hands, and he at once fired at and killed the lioness before she had inflicted any further injuries on her victim. Mr. Jones, however, had been badly bitten in the shoulder, and was an inmate of the hospital at Salisbury for some considerable time in consequence. The two anecdotes I have just related will serve to show that in Southern Africa lions do not invariably at once beat a retreat when brought face to face with man in the daytime. These cases are, however, exceptional, and it may fairly be said that, speaking generally, these great cats have a most wholesome dread of the human biped, and avoid him as much as possible by daylight, but when once the sun has set and the darkness of night has come on, lions become bold and fearless, and often, when urged on by hunger, incredibly reckless and daring. It is by no means unusual for oxen to be seized at the yokes or horses to be killed inside a stable, or when tied to the wheel of a waggon; whilst in Mashonaland alone four men were carried off and eaten by lions during the first two years of the occupation of that country. One of these unfortunates was a young man who was about to start a market-garden in the neighbourhood of Umtali settlement. He had gone away with a cart and four oxen to buy some native meal at one of the Kafir kraals, and had outspanned for the night at a spot about six miles distant from the little township. The oxen were tied up to the yokes, and Mr. Teale was lying asleep under the cart, alongside of a native, when a lion walked up, and, seizing him by the shoulder, carried him off and killed and ate him. This lion, be it noted, showed a refined taste in disregarding the oxen and the Kafir, and seizing the European. It is supposed that a lion and a lioness took part in the feast. The lioness was subsequently shot, and the head and one of the feet of the unfortunate market-gardener recovered, but the lion escaped.

As an example of much greater boldness, let me relate the following anecdote. In August 1892, Captain Graham, the resident magistrate of Umtali, visited Marauka’s kraal with a patrol of twelve mounted white men and a small native contingent. A large camp was formed at the foot of the hill on which Marauka’s village was situated, the horses were tied on a picket-line, and several large fires were lighted in different parts of the camp. In the middle of the night a lioness walked right past the outside fires, passed close by two white men who were covered by their blankets, and seized a native who was lying alongside of a fire in the centre of the camp. She caught him by the shoulder, dragged him past the outside fires, and then dropping him, gave him some terrible bites about the head and arm. The man had, of course, shouted out when he was seized, and he retained his presence of mind in a marvellous manner, for when some of the white men approached with a lantern, he called out, ‘Don’t shoot now, the lion is lying on me’; this was translated by the interpreter, and presently the plucky fellow again spoke and said, ‘Now fire, she’s standing up over me.’ Three shots were then fired into the lioness, which was very badly wounded, and ultimately killed the next morning. The wounded native was then pulled back into the camp, but, though conscious, he was so terribly mutilated that he died early the next day. The lioness was now _hors de combat_, but two young lions that were with her soon afterwards invaded the camp and attacked the horses tied on the picket-line. Five of these broke away all tied together, and all five were more or less scratched and bitten, two of them very severely. None were killed, however, and ultimately all of them recovered. Later on one of the young lions came back to the camp, and carried off a saddle, which it tore all to pieces. When day broke, the wounded lioness was shot, but the young lions had made off, and were not seen. I have given this anecdote because I was in Umtali shortly after the return of the patrol and spoke with all the men who had taken part in it, and saw the horses with their wounds still unhealed, and the remnants of the saddle that had been torn all to pieces. However, although in the interior of South Africa a certain number of natives are killed annually by hungry lions, I do not think that these animals are so destructive to human life as are tigers in India. Although cases do occur, I think it very exceptional for a lion to kill human beings for food except when driven to it by hunger. In the neighbourhood of the Pungwe river, where game of all kinds abounds, and where lions are also very numerous, the natives assured me that the lions never troubled them; but in Northern Mashonaland, where game is comparatively scarce, the lions in 1886 became so dangerous, and carried off so many women whilst they were working in their cornfields, that the few scattered families of Mashunas living in the district to the north of Lo Magondi’s deserted the country. Old lions, whose bodily powers are on the wane, are probably the most dangerous. When they can no longer catch and pull down wild animals, they approach the native villages and prey on the goats and dogs, and if they are not destroyed soon take to killing women and children. In countries where both game and lions abound, I presume that the old and weakly lions can always get a living, like the hyænas, on the remains of the carcases of animals killed by younger and more vigorous animals. As man is not the lion’s usual food, most lions would probably give way before a human being even on a dark night and allow him to pass unmolested, provided they were not hungry; but were a man to come within the ken of a hungry lion under such circumstances I should look upon him as a dead man whether he were armed or not, for the lion would probably spring upon him suddenly from behind and give him no time to make use of his weapon. Therefore I look upon it as foolhardy in the extreme to walk along a road or a native footpath, on a dark night, in countries which are infested by lions, if you can avoid doing so. You may walk twenty times at night before meeting a lion at all; and you may meet twenty lions before encountering a really hungry animal; but when you do at last meet him, he will, most assuredly, be the last lion that you will have any knowledge of in this world.

There is an old fable, still believed in more or less, that the lion is a very clean feeder, and that he will eat nothing but the flesh of an animal that he has killed himself. That has not been my experience. On the contrary, I have found that, even where game abounds, lions will seldom pass the carcase of an animal killed by a hunter, but will almost invariably feed on it, even though the flesh be quite putrid. Sometimes when several elephants have been shot, lions will feast on the stinking carcases as long as there is any soft meat left, and I have known this to happen in a country where game of various kinds was plentiful, especially zebras, which are always a favourite food of lions. However, although the lion is not a clean feeder in the sense that he will only eat fresh meat, he is wonderfully dexterous in disembowelling a carcase, without messing the meat. When Kafirs kill an animal and cut it up, they almost invariably tear open the paunch and intestines and spill the contents over the meat, making everything in such a filthy mess that some people would lose all appetite at the very sight of it; but lions invariably remove the interior economy of their victims with a surprising neatness, and without defiling the meat in any way. When they have killed an animal, they will sometimes commence feeding on the soft meat of the inside of the buttocks, tearing the carcase open at the anus; but in nine cases out of ten they work through the thin skin of the flank, at the inside of the hind leg, and then remove the paunch and entrails. After this they eat the heart, liver, lungs, and kidneys; next, as a rule, they attack the buttocks and tear off the soft meat in mouthfuls, swallowing it in great lumps, often with the skin attached. If the animal they have killed is fat, they will eat the whole brisket, bones and all, and also chew off all the ends of the ribs, but they never swallow any of the larger and harder bones. The paunch and entrails are almost invariably left untouched, and are often covered over with earth and grass. But there are exceptions to every rule, and I think it is indisputable that in some cases lions will eat both the entrails and the paunch of an animal they have killed.

In March 1892, whilst examining the country between Manica and the East coast, in company with Mr. Jesser Coope, with a view to laying out a new waggon road between Umtali township and the railway terminus, we came suddenly upon the remains of a buffalo which had been killed only a few hours previously by a number of lions. These animals must have heard us approaching, and only retreated into the long grass just as we rode up, and as the whole country was covered with grass eight feet high all pursuit was hopeless. Judging by the number of distinct ‘lay places’ round the carcase of the buffalo, which were ten in number, there must either have been ten lions, or five, each of which had lain down in two different places. The latter number, I think, is the true estimate, and the party probably consisted of an old lion and four lionesses, as there were no cub spoors. The carcase of the buffalo, from which almost all the meat had been eaten, had been disembowelled in the usual neat and cleanly manner, and at a distance of some ten yards off it stood two mounds, apparently of earth and grass. I pointed these out to my young friend, and said, ‘The lions have buried the paunch and entrails of the buffalo beneath those mounds.’ This work had been done most effectually, a space of several yards square having been cleared of grass, all of which, together with a great deal of earth, had been piled up on the two mounds. Wishing to sit up that night and watch over the carcase, we did not at the moment disturb the earth and grass-covered heaps or do anything which might have aroused the suspicions of the lions, but rode back to our waggon, and returning at once with some Kafirs built a shelter at the foot of a tree, a few yards from the carcase of the buffalo, in which Mr. Jesser Coope and myself took up our positions for the night, the Kafirs returning to the waggon. However, strange to say, the lions never put in an appearance, and so our watch was in vain and we neither saw nor heard anything more of them. On the following morning I commenced to turn over the heaps in which I thought the paunch and entrails were hidden, in order to get some of the large horned dung beetles which are common in this part of Africa, and I very soon found to my surprise that, though the vegetable contents of the paunch and entrails had been hidden from view, there was no animal matter there whatever, so that I cannot but conclude that in this instance, at any rate, the lions had eaten all the animal portions of the paunch and entrails of a recently killed animal.

Two instances have come under my notice of lions eating the remains of one of their own species, and I think that when hungry they would never be above such acts of cannibalism, but they would probably prefer something else, just as a shipwrecked sailor would prefer Polar bear to a steak off the comrade who had drawn the fatal lot. But with lions, as with shipwrecked sailors, necessity knows no law, and I don’t think any the worse of them because they are occasionally driven to cannibalism.

There has been much discussion as to the manner in which lions kill their prey. In ‘Wild Beasts and their Ways,’ the last of the many interesting works on travel, sport and natural history for which Englishmen are indebted to Sir Samuel Baker, that great authority says that the lion uses his paw in attack with which to deal a crushing blow in contradistinction to the tiger, which only makes use of its claws to hold its prey. Now it is always possible that in a vast continent like Africa animals of one species may develop different habits in widely separated portions of the country; but, however that may be, all my experience goes to show that, in Southern Africa, lions kill their prey very much in the same way as Sir Samuel Baker tells us tigers do in India; that is, they use their claws to hold their victim, and do the killing with their teeth. A single large male lion will sometimes kill a heavy ox or a buffalo cow, without using his teeth at all, by breaking its neck, or rather causing the frightened beast to break its own neck. Almost invariably when an ox or a buffalo has been killed by a single lion, deep claw marks will be found on the muzzle of the animal, and when that is the case, it will usually be found that the neck has been dislocated. Such animals have been killed in the following manner. We will suppose that a large heavy ox weighing 1,000 lbs. is seized by a lion, whilst grazing or walking, the attack being made from the left side. In that case the lion seizes the ox by the muzzle with its left paw, pulling its head in under it. At the same time with the extended claws of the right paw it holds its victim by the top of the shoulder, its hind feet being firmly planted on the ground. The ox plunges madly forward, and from the position in which its head is held not seeing where it is going, and hampered by the weight of the lion, soon falls, and rolling over, as often as not breaks its neck by the weight of its own body.

When several lions attack an ox in concert, they do not kill the animal as quickly and artistically as a single old male lion would have done, but bite it and claw it all over, especially on the back of the neck, the tops of the shoulder-blades, and on the elbow-joint and the insides of the thighs. This inartistic work may possibly be owing to the fact that when a family of lions is together the old lions leave the younger animals to do the killing, in order to allow them to learn their trade, or else because as soon as an old lion has seized an ox, or a buffalo, or whatever animal it may be, the young ones, being unable to restrain themselves, spring on to it, and bite it all over, with the result that the unfortunate animal is not so cleanly killed as he would have been had he been left to one old lion. Horses, donkeys and zebras are killed by lions by being bitten at the back of the neck, just behind the ears, or else in the throat; but always just round the head. As far as my memory serves me, it is not usual for them to hold a horse by the nose with one paw as they do an ox, and this ruse is, I think, employed by them with horned animals in order to prevent them making use of their horns. Full-grown giraffes are sometimes killed by lions, though not very often. When they do fall victims they are probably seized, and bitten high up in the neck near the head, whilst lying down. Human beings when carried off by lions are usually seized by the head, and in that case are killed instantaneously, the canine teeth being driven through the skull at the first bite. If the head is not the part first bitten it will be the shoulder, and in that case the man will probably have been lying on his side with the one shoulder exposed.

As far as my experience goes, I have never known an instance of a lion carrying its prey raised from the ground. Even such small and light animals as goats, impala antelopes, and young wart-hogs are always held by the head or neck, and dragged along the ground at the side of the lion. When a heavy animal like a horse or an ox is dragged, it is always held by the neck. I simply cannot believe in the possibility of a lion’s springing over a palisade and carrying the carcase of an ox with him. When lions break into cattle kraals at night, they never or very seldom spring over the fence even when it is a low one, but work their way through the bottom of the fence. They will sometimes walk round and round a stockaded kraal, that one would have expected them to leap over at once without difficulty, and finally effect an entrance by forcing two poles apart and squeezing through. If suddenly disturbed or fired at at night whilst inside a kraal, they will often spring over the fence in their hurry to get out.

[Illustration: My best lion]

The wild lion of Southern Africa seldom presents the majestic appearance of the picture-book animal, because as a rule he does not carry a long shaggy mane, like the lions one often sees in menageries. Occasionally, however, one sees a wild lion with a fine full dark mane, and then he is a magnificent animal, and one of the noblest prizes that can fall to the sportsman’s rifle. I have been much struck by the beauty of the manes of many of the lions shot by Colonel Arthur Paget, Lord Wolverton, Lord Delamere and other sportsmen in Somaliland, and I think there can be no doubt that in that part of Africa the lions grow better manes on an average than in South Africa. The dark parts are, too, of a deeper black. But I have not yet seen a lion’s skin from Somaliland with so full a mane as in the three best skins I have seen from South Africa. None of these three splendid animals were, alas! shot by myself. One was killed by the natives in Matabeleland and its skin given me by Lo Bengula, and I still have it in my possession; the second was killed at the Umfuli river in Mashonaland by my friend Cornelis van Rooyen, and the third two years ago within a few miles of the same spot by Hans Lee, the young Boer hunter who accompanied Lord Randolph Churchill on his recent expedition to South Africa.

Although I have seen a very large number of skins of wild lions, I have never yet seen one with long hair growing on the belly as is so common in menagerie lions and invariable in the picture-book animal. A wild lion with a very fine mane will have a tuft of long hair in the arm-pit, another on the elbow, and in some cases a tuft in the flank, but the hair of the belly is always short and close, as on the rest of the body. In the great majority of cases the mane of the wild lion is simply a ruff round the neck with an extension down the back between the shoulders. In very rare and exceptional cases the angle formed between the end of this extension and the point of the shoulder is covered with mane, as it is very commonly in the menagerie lion; but, as a rule, the whole shoulder of the wild lion is devoid of mane. Very often a large heavy full-grown male lion, a splendid animal in strength and symmetry, will have scarcely any mane at all, and his skin is not then a handsome trophy.

There are very few authentic statistics regarding the weight of lions, and I am unfortunately not able to cast much light on this subject. Sir Samuel Baker, in ‘Wild Beasts and their Ways,’ gives no actual statistics regarding the weight of any particular lions, but appears to think that full-grown well-fed males of this species would on an average weigh from five to six hundred pounds. Not long ago a question was asked at my suggestion through the columns of the ‘Field’ newspaper on this very subject, but with one exception no satisfactory information was elicited. The exception to which I refer was a communication from Mr. William Yellowly, of South Shields, and ran as follows:--

In reply to the query in last week’s issue of the ‘Field’ anent the weight of lions, I beg to state that a fine black-maned lion, which died in the late Mrs. Edmond’s menagerie at Warrington on February 18, 1875, was sent to me the next day. The following measurements before skinning will give an idea of its magnificent proportions: Length from nose to root of tail, 6 ft. 10 ins.; from nose to tip of tail, 10 ft.; girth behind shoulder, 4 ft. 9 ins.; girth of upper arm, 1 ft. 10 ins.; height at shoulder 3 ft. 6 ins.; and its dead weight was 31 stone or 434 lbs.

These statistics appear to me to be perfectly reliable, and I regard them as the carefully taken weight and measurements of a large well-fed menagerie lion. How the measurement for length was taken from nose to tip of tail I do not know, but I should fancy along the curves of the head and back, which would make it an inch or two more than if it had been taken in a perfectly straight line between two pegs, one driven into the ground at the nose, and the other at the extremity of the tail of the dead animal. I will now give the few statistics regarding the weight and measurements of wild lions which I can vouch for as being authentic.

Many years ago a lion was shot one night at Kati in Western Matabeleland inside the cattle kraal, where it had killed an ox, and the next morning early the carcase was placed on the large scale used for weighing ivory, which stood under the verandah of one of the traders’ houses at only a few yards distance from the cattle kraal. This lion weighed 376 lbs.; it was a large full-grown animal, but in low condition.

In 1887 a lion, shot by myself and friends close to our waggon, was carried into camp and carefully weighed, and was found to turn the scale at 385 lbs. This was a fine animal in good condition but with no fat about him, and my impression at the time was that he would have grown bigger and heavier, as his mane was short, and did not appear to have reached its full length and beauty.

In the end of 1891 I shot a very large lion at Hartley Hills in Mashonaland, and weighed and measured it carefully, as it was killed within three hundred yards of the settlement. This animal, which was a remarkably fine specimen of a wild lion, was in excellent condition, its whole belly being covered with a layer of fat quite half an inch in thickness; it was also a very large animal, as its measurements will show, and I was much surprised to find that its weight was not greater than it proved to be. As the scale on which I weighed it only registered a weight of 220 lbs., I had to skin and cut the lion up, and weigh him by instalments, and the aggregate of the weights was 408 lbs. As a good deal of blood was lost when his head was cut off, I will add two pounds to this figure, and say that this lion’s dead weight was not less than 410 lbs. I was much disappointed with this lion, as I expected him to weigh 500 lbs. He was an old animal, and might have weighed more when he was a few years younger, as in spite of being fat and well fed, I don’t think his quarters were so rounded and muscular as they might have been. The measurements of his skull--which is now in the collection of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington--are identical with those of the skull of the largest lion shot by Colonel Arthur Paget in Somaliland, as given in Mr. Ward’s book of game measurements; the weight of the skull is 5½ lbs., or ½ lb. in excess of the weight of the very large skull of a lion shot by Mr. Geddes in Eastern Africa, the measurements of which are recorded in the same book. I took the extreme length and the standing height of this lion very carefully; taking the distance with a tape line between pegs driven in firstly at the point of the nose and the tip of the tail, and secondly at the top of the shoulder-blade and the ball of the forefoot, the limb being held straight the while. These measurements give his extreme length in a straight line as he lay dead as 9 ft. 11 ins., and his vertical standing height to the top of the shoulder-blade as 3 ft. 8 ins. The height to the top of the mane, however, with which his shoulders were thickly covered and which was his apparent standing height, was exactly 4 ft. When the skin of this lion was pegged out on the ground it measured 11 ft. 9 ins. in extreme length from nose to tip of tail.

The last lion which I shot, on October 3, 1892, near the Pungwe river in South-Eastern Africa, was a very thick-set, massive animal, and enormously fat. He would, I think, have weighed very heavy, but unfortunately I had no scale with me. I took a few careful measurements, however, which are as follows: Length as he lay in a straight line between pegs driven into the ground at the nose and tip of the tail, 9 ft. 1 in.; vertical standing height at shoulder, 3 ft. 4 ins.; girth of body behind the shoulders, 4 ft. 0½ ins.; girth of forearm, 17 ins.; length of pegged-out skin exactly 11 ft. If any conclusion can be drawn from these few statistics, it is I think that a lion which weighs much over 400 lbs. is an exceptionally heavy animal.

One of the most striking characteristics of the lion is his roar, for there is no more magnificent sound in Nature than the volume of sound produced by a party of lions roaring in unison, that is, if one is fortunate enough to be very near to them. It is, however, a rare occurrence to hear lions roar loudly within a short distance of one’s camp, and in all my experience, though I have heard these animals roaring upon hundreds of different occasions, I can count the nights on the fingers of one hand when, all unconscious of my near vicinity, a party of several lions has roared freely within 100 yards of where I was lying. Last year, whilst hunting with two companions in the neighbourhood of the Pungwe river, I don’t think a single night passed during the six weeks we remained in that part of the country that we did not hear lions, and sometimes three different parties of these animals were roaring round our camp at the same time. But on no single occasion were they ever within a mile of where we were sleeping, and as there are probably few parts of Africa where lions are more plentiful than in this particular district, I think it is quite possible to have had a very considerable experience of African travel and yet never to have heard lions roaring freely at very close quarters. If ever experienced, such a serenade can never be forgotten, for it is at once magnificent yet calculated to fill the soul with awe.

It is a fact I think which admits of no dispute that lions only roar freely in countries where they have not been much disturbed, and where they are practically the masters of the situation, and as soon as a district in which these animals exist is much hunted over, they become comparatively silent. Thus, although lions are still fairly numerous in the neighbourhood of the outlying mining camps in Mashonaland, where they continually make their presence disagreeably felt by killing the donkeys, oxen and horses of the prospectors, they are seldom heard to roar at nights, and I have noticed this same peculiarity in other newly settled districts. Loud roaring is usually, I think, a sign of happiness and contentment, and is indulged in very often when on the way down to drink, after a good meal. Naturally, when hungry and on the look out for their prey, lions do not roar, but remain perfectly silent, and when they attack one’s camp at night, the first intimation received of their presence will be given by the cries and struggles of the animal they seize. When standing at bay lions do not roar, but keep up a continuous loud hoarse growling, which can be heard at a considerable distance.

It has always appeared to me that lions succumb more quickly to wounds in the front part of the body, in the neighbourhood of the heart and lungs, than do any of the antelopes living in the same country; but, as with all other animals, shots through the stomach, intestines, or hind-quarters do them little immediate harm, unless indeed the back or leg bones are injured, when they are at once disabled. Although, as I have said earlier in this chapter, lions almost always retreat before the presence of man, they become very savage when wounded, and it is undoubtedly highly dangerous work following them into long grass or thick cover without dogs. My experience in Southern Africa has shown me that wounded lions are far more likely to charge than wounded buffaloes, and although they may be more easily stopped, they are much quicker and more difficult to hit than those animals.

I have only shot lions with two kinds of rifles, a single 10-bore carrying a spherical bullet and six drachms of powder, and a .450-bore Metford rifle by George Gibbs of Bristol, carrying either a 360-grain expanding bullet and ninety grains of powder, or a 540-grain solid bullet and seventy-five grains of powder; and in my opinion the .450-bore with the heavy 360-grain expanding bullet was the more deadly weapon. These expanding bullets, having but a very small hole at the point and a good solid base, possess great penetrating power, as may be believed when I say that they will reach the brain of a hippopotamus, should they enter at the side of the head between the ear and the eye. They will go clean through a lion behind the shoulders, after first making a very large hole through his lungs; and if the animal be struck in the shoulder, the bones will be smashed and the solid end of the bullet will go right through the cavity of the chest, probably piercing the heart, and lodge in the further shoulder. I think that the effectiveness of a rifle depends more on the bullet it carries than on its bore, and should consider a .450-bore rifle such as I have described carrying a 360-grain expanding bullet, with only a small hollow and a good solid end, a more trustworthy weapon than a rifle of a much larger bore carrying a short light bullet with a very large hollow. Doubtless a good .577-bore rifle is a much more powerful weapon than any .450; but the latter if carrying a good heavy bullet will be found very effective for lion shooting, and is not only lighter and handier than the larger rifle, but has no recoil, as the charge of powder is comparatively small.

I will now conclude this chapter by giving an account of the death of the largest lion that it has been my fortune to bag--the same animal whose weight and dimensions I have given on p. 329.

Towards the end of the second year of the occupation of Mashonaland by the British South Africa Company, I was sent to some of the mining camps to the north and west of Salisbury, in order to make a report upon the roads in those districts. On December 8, 1891, I reached Hartley Hills, one of the outlying stations of the British South Africa Company, where, at the time of my visit, there were about twenty Europeans living, most of whom were employed in mining work. Among the company’s officials were Mr. Woodthorpe Graham, the gold commissioner and chief magistrate of the district, and Dr. Edgelow, the district surgeon. For some days previous to my arrival at the station, the weather had been very rainy, and the sky dull and cloudy. Hartley Hills are, I may here say, two small ‘kopjes,’ formed of granite boulders piled up one upon another to a height of perhaps 100 feet above the surrounding country. On one of these hills stood the stores and dwelling houses of Frank Johnson & Co., while the Gold Commissioner and the Doctor occupied the other; and it was at the foot of the latter hill that I outspanned my waggon at a distance of not more than twenty yards from Mr. Graham’s compound. As I knew that a great deal of damage had been done lately by one particular lion, which had been seen on several occasions, and which was always described as a very large animal with a fine mane, I was in hopes that he might still be about, and thought that if he would only be good enough to pay a visit to the settlement whilst I was there, I might get a good chance of shooting him, as the wet weather, I imagined, would make the ground sufficiently soft to enable me to track him. Not content with killing oxen and donkeys at some little distance from the settlement, this lion had one night so frightened two valuable horses belonging to Mr. Frank Johnson that they had rushed at the door of their stable, and breaking the thongs with which it was secured, broken out, and run up the hill, where they were both killed within a few yards of a dwelling hut usually occupied by Mr. Johnson, who was, however, absent at the time. The carcase of the one horse was left entirely untouched, I was informed, the animal having been killed by a bite at the back of the head, the lion making his meal off his other victim, which was possibly in better condition.

My first question after my arrival at Hartley Hills was as to whether this lion was still in the district, and I was much disappointed to learn that nothing had been heard of him lately. I found my old friend Mr. Graham just packing up for a three days’ trip into the country to the west of the Umfuli river, where some rich gold reefs had been discovered, on which he was anxious to report. That evening I had dinner with Dr. Edgelow, and a long chat afterwards, and as, when it was time to turn in, a drizzly rain was falling, I resolved to take possession of Mr. Graham’s hut for the night, instead of going down to my waggon. As it wanted about three days to full moon, it would have been a bright moonlight night had the weather been fine, but as it was the sky was thickly overcast with clouds. Before quitting Dr. Edgelow I remarked to him what a beautiful night it was for a lion, regarded, of course, from a lion’s point of view, as these animals are always most dangerous on dark, rainy nights. My waggon, as I have said before, was standing just at the foot of the rocks, the oxen being tied two and two in the yokes; but besides the working cattle I had a spare animal that always lay loose at no great distance from the others. My old shooting horse was tied to the forewheel of the waggon, on the side nearest to the hill, whilst my old servant and waggon-driver, John, and two Kafirs, were sleeping under a shelter which they had made on the other side of the waggon.

I had sat up till a late hour talking with Dr. Edgelow, and when I at last went to bed in Mr. Graham’s hut the camp was perfectly quiet, everyone being fast asleep, an example which I was not long in following. I must have slept for some hours when I was suddenly awakened by the discharge of a rifle. Being inside the hut I awoke without any distinct idea of the direction in which the shot had been fired; but the first report was quickly followed by a second which I knew must have been fired from my waggon. Jumping up I at once made for the door of the hut and opened it just as a third shot was fired. ‘What’s the matter?’I called out in Dutch to John. ‘It’s a lion, sir; he has killed the loose ox,’ he answered, and again fired. This time the shot was answered by a low hoarse growl, the bullet, I suppose, having passed very close to the marauder. I was soon down at the waggon alongside of John, but nothing was to be either seen or heard. The rain had ceased, but as the moon was now down, and it was very cloudy, the darkness was intense, and it was evident that nothing could be done till daylight. John felt sure the ox was dead, as he had heard it make a short rush and fall heavily twice, after which all was still, and as we could now hear nothing, we both thought the lion had been scared away from the carcase by the last shot. It is worthy of remark that, although this ox was seized and killed by a lion within thirty yards of fourteen other oxen that were tied to the yokes, not one of them evinced the slightest alarm, and the greater part of them lay quietly chewing the cud till daylight, undisturbed either by the near proximity of the lion or by the shots fired by John. I suppose the lion had come up below the wind, and never having scented him, they did not realise what had happened. My old horse, however, which was always very nervous and fidgetty in the presence of lions, seemed fully aware of what had occurred, as with ears pricked forwards, and looking in the direction whence the low hoarse growl of the lion had proceeded, he kept shifting his feet uneasily, every now and again snorting loudly.

It did not want more than an hour to daylight, so I had a kettle of coffee made, and then sat over the fire talking with John, and discussing the probabilities of getting a shot at the lion in the morning. As the ground was so wet from the heavy rain that had been falling during the last few days, we both thought we should be able to follow the lion’s tracks and come up with him without the aid of dogs, and I was in great hopes that our visitor would prove to be a fine male with a good mane whose skin would fully compensate me for the loss of the ox.

When at last the morning broke dull and misty I went and examined the carcase of the ox, which, as soon as there was a little light, we could see lying just on the edge of the waggon-road coming from Salisbury, at a distance of about thirty yards from the waggon. The ground being so soft from the recent rains we had an excellent opportunity of seeing exactly how this ox had been seized and killed. The lion had evidently approached the unsuspecting animal very quietly whilst it was lying asleep within twenty yards of the other oxen, and seized it unawares, or just as it was rising to its feet after becoming conscious of the unwelcome presence. Then springing upon his victim, with his left paw he had seized it by the muzzle, holding it by the top of the shoulder-blade with the claws of the right paw, and at the same time keeping his hind feet on the ground. Thus held, the ox--a large heavy animal weighing as he stood 900 or 1,000 lbs.--had plunged madly forwards for a few yards, rolled over, regained his feet, and after another plunge again fallen, apparently breaking his neck by his own weight. The lion seemed never to have relaxed the first hold he had taken of the muzzle and shoulder of the ox, and the marks of his hind feet, stamped deep into the muddy ground with outstretched claws, were plainly discernible alongside the tracks of the ox. The ox was ultimately killed by having his neck broken, and lay with his head doubled in under him, there being no mark of a wound upon him but the claw marks on the muzzle and shoulder. Except that one ear had been bitten off, the carcase was untouched, the lion having been scared away by John’s bullets, which must have whizzed unpleasantly near him, and caused him to beat a hasty retreat.

[Illustration: ‘Springing upon his victim’]

As soon as it was fairly light I saddled my horse, and John and I took up the spoor, which led us down to the little river Simbo, a small stream, about three hundred yards from my waggon, which runs into the Umfuli River, just below Hartley Hills. For about a mile beyond the Simbo we were able to follow without difficulty the tracks of what was evidently a large male lion, as the ground was low-lying and soft from the recent heavy rains; but after this the spoor got into soil of a different nature, thickly covered with short grass, where the footprints left but little trace. Suffice it to say that we followed the tracks for over three hours, and finally lost them in stony ground, and could not manage to pick them up again. For another hour I rode about examining all the patches of bush in the neighbourhood, as I felt sure the lion was somewhere near at hand, waiting for night, to return to the carcase of the ox he had killed. However, as I could not discover his whereabouts or find any further trace of him, I was obliged to give up the pursuit and returned to camp, resolved to sit up and watch the carcase that night.

On again reaching the settlement, Mr. Somerville, who was in charge of Mr. Johnson’s compound, informed me that the lion had walked past his cattle kraal, in which there were a few goats, sheep, and calves, and had killed one of the goats by putting his paw between the poles of which the enclosure was made. Seizing the animal by the throat, which he had torn open, the lion had severed the jugular vein, so that the beast bled to death. This had evidently been done before my ox was killed, and apparently out of sheer exuberance of spirits, as no attempt had been made to pull the carcase out of the kraal by forcing two of the poles forming the palisade apart from one another.

After breakfast, I went and examined the ground round the dead ox, with a view to choosing a position from which to watch for the lion. The carcase was lying with its back on the edge of the waggon-road, the hind quarters being nearest to my camp. A small tree was growing close to the extended legs of the dead ox, and actually within six feet of either the fore or hind feet. This tree branched into two main stems at about two feet from the ground, and as a rifle protruded between them would be within three yards of any part of the carcase, I resolved to make a small shelter behind its trunk. I wished to be as near as possible to the carcase, because, on a former occasion, I had lain for several hours one night within ten yards of a dead ox at which lions were feeding without being able to see anything of them, and as they left before daylight I never got a shot at them at all. This time, as I thought it possible that the lion might not come back until after the moon had set, when it would be intensely dark, I was determined to be as close to him as possible. There being only one lion to deal with, I was not much afraid of his interfering with me, at any rate before he was fired at, and so made my shelter as small as possible in order that it should not attract his attention. We first chopped a few straight poles, and leant them together at the back of the tree, and then covered them with some leafy branches.

That evening I had dinner with Dr. Edgelow, and about half-past seven, just as night was closing in, took my rifle and blankets and crawled into my shelter, in which I had only just room to sit upright. John then closed the entrance behind me, and I prepared for a long vigil. As the moon was now within two nights of the full, it would have been a lovely moonlight night had it not been that the sky was overcast with clouds; but these clouds were light and fleecy, so that the moon gave a strong light through them. Looking through the side of my leafy shelter, I could very distinctly see John and the two Kafir boys sitting by their fire at the side of the waggon, as well as the head of my old horse, which was tied to the forewheel on the further side; my oxen, too, I could clearly distinguish, so clearly indeed, that I could make out their colours, and see the raw-hide thongs with which they were tied to the yokes. Some were standing up, and every now and again one of these would move about and rattle the iron trek-chain as he did so, but the greater part of them were lying down chewing the cud contentedly, after a good day’s feed. Besides my waggon, I could see, too, all the huts on the hillside within Mr. Graham’s compound, and hear the Kafir workboys talking and laughing noisily, as is their wont while sitting round the camp fire of an evening.

As the shooting-hole between the diverging branches of the tree behind which I sat only allowed me to get a view directly over the carcase of the ox, I arranged another opening to the right which gave me a good view up the waggon road along which I thought the lion would most likely come, and I placed the muzzle of my rifle in this opening when I entered my shelter. As the night was so light, I thought it very likely that my vigil might be a long one; for even if he did not wait until the moon had set, I never imagined that the lion would put in an appearance until after midnight when the camp would be quite quiet. Under this impression, I had just finished the arrangement of my blankets, placing some behind me and the rest beneath me, so as to make myself as comfortable as possible in so confined a space, and was just leaning back, and dreamily wondering whether I could keep awake all night, when, still as in a dream, I saw the form of a magnificent lion pass rapidly and noiselessly as a phantom of the night across the moonlit disc of the shooting-hole I had made to the right of the tree stem. In another instant he had passed and was hidden by the tree, but a moment later his shaggy head again appeared before the opening formed by the diverging stems. Momentary as had been the glimpse I had of him as he passed the right-hand opening, I had marked him as a magnificent black-maned lion with neck and shoulders well covered with long shaggy hair. He now stood with his forelegs right against the breast of the dead ox, and with his head held high, gazed fixedly towards my waggon and oxen, every one of which he could of course see very distinctly, as well as my boy John and the Kafirs beside him. I heard my horse snort, and knew he had seen the lion, but the oxen, although they must have seen him too, showed no sign of fear. The Kafirs were still laughing and talking noisily not fifty yards away, and, bold as he was, the lion must have felt a little anxious as he stood silently gazing in the direction from which he thought danger might be apprehended.

All this time, but without ever taking my eyes off the lion, I was noiselessly moving the muzzle of my little rifle from the right-hand side opening to the space that commanded a view of his head. This I was obliged to do very cautiously, for fear of touching a branch behind me and making a noise. I could see the black crest of mane between his ears move lightly in the wind, for he was so near that had I held my rifle by the small of the stock I could have touched him with the muzzle by holding it at arm’s length. Once only he turned his head and looked round right into my eyes, but of course without seeing me, as I was in the dark, and apparently without taking the slightest alarm, as he again turned his head and stood looking at the waggon as before. I could only see his head, his shoulder being hidden by the right-hand stem of the tree, and I had made up my mind to try and blow his brains out, thinking I was so near that I could not fail to do so even without being able to see the sight of my rifle. I had just got the muzzle of my rifle into the fork of the tree, and was about to raise it quite leisurely, the lion having hitherto showed no signs of uneasiness. I was working as cautiously as possible, when without the slightest warning he suddenly gave a low grating growl, and turned round, his head disappearing instantly from view. With a jerk, I pulled the muzzle of my rifle from the one opening and pushed it through the other, just as the lion walked rapidly past in the direction from which he had come. He was not more than four or five yards from me, and I should certainly have given him a mortal wound, had not my rifle missed fire at this most critical juncture, the hammer giving a loud click in the stillness of the night. At the sound the lion broke into a gallop, and was almost instantly out of sight.

For a moment I was almost paralysed by the magnitude of the misfortune that had befallen me. That a magnificent black-maned lion should have been within six feet of the muzzle of my rifle, and should yet have escaped, owing to a miss-fire, seemed the very irony of fate. I could scarcely believe that the whole scene was not an illusion or a vivid dream; but when I called out in Dutch, ‘Myn Gott, John, myn roer het dopje afgeklap’ (‘My God, John, my gun has missed fire’), and heard him answer, ‘Ik hor em, Sir’ (‘I heard it, Sir’), then I knew that I had really experienced a most extraordinary piece of ill-luck. It was not yet half-past eight, and the first thing I did was to go up to Dr. Edgelow’s hut, and take my rifle to pieces. The cap had been untouched by the striker, and I thought at first that the point of the latter was broken, but I found it in perfect order. Finally I discovered that the miss-fire was owing to the safety-bolt having got so loose that it must have shifted up a little when I jerked the rifle rapidly from one opening to another, and thus prevented the striker from coming down on the cap. After fixing the safety-bolt down to full cock I went to my waggon. I felt sure the lion would not now return, if he came back at all, till just before daybreak, when the moon would have set and it would be very dark.

I was so upset and exasperated by the cruel experience I had met with that I could not lie still or sleep, and so spent the greater part of the night in walking about round my waggon. At last the moon went down, and I then turned in and lay listening, hoping to hear the lion at the carcase, but he did not return, and presently, just as the day was breaking, John brought me the usual early cup of coffee. As I had not slept at all, I told him to see if he could follow the lion’s spoor and see in which direction he had gone, and then tried to doze a bit. Presently I got up, when John came up with a broad grin on his face, and said, ‘Sir, after the lion went off when your rifle missed fire, he went up to Mr. Johnson’s kraal and killed a lot of sheep and goats. One of these he ate in the kraal, and he has taken another away with him. I can see the spoor plainly where he has dragged it along towards the little stream running below Hartley Hills.’

I felt there was yet a chance, and a good one, of retrieving my evil fortune of the previous evening, and at once had my horse saddled up. The spoor of the lion himself was easy enough to follow in the soft ground at the foot of the hill, and the tracking was made all the easier by the fact that he had dragged the goat alongside of him, holding it, I suppose, by the back of the neck, and trailing its hind-quarters on the ground. In less than five minutes after I had put the saddle on my horse we were down at the little stream across which we had followed the lion on the preceding day. Here the ground became stony, and we lost the spoor. John was looking about near the edge of the shallow water, and I had turned my horse’s head to look along the bank higher up, when the unmistakable growl of a lion issued from the bushes beyond the rivulet, and at the same time John said ‘Daar’s hij’ (‘There he is’). I was off my horse in an instant to be ready for a shot, when he turned round and trotted away, and John ran to try and catch him. I thought the luck was all against me, as I expected the lion would make off and get clean away; but I ran forward, trying to get a sight of him, when he suddenly made his appearance in the bush about fifty yards away, and catching sight of me, came straight towards me at a rapid pace, holding his head low and growling savagely. I suppose he wanted to frighten me, but he could not have done a kinder thing. He came right on to the further bank of the little stream just where it formed a pool of water, and stood there amongst some rocks growling and whisking his tail about, and always keeping his eyes fixed upon me. Of course he gave me a splendid shot, and in another instant I hit him, between the neck and the shoulder in the side of his chest, with a 360-grain expanding bullet. As I pulled the trigger I felt pretty sure he was mine. With a loud roar he reared right up, and coming over sideways fell off the rock on which he had been standing into the pool of water below him. The water was over three feet deep, and for an instant he disappeared entirely from view, but the next instant regaining his feet, stood on the bottom with his head and shoulders above the surface. I now came towards him, when again seeing me he came plunging through the water towards me growling angrily. But his strength was fast failing him, and I saw it was all he could do to reach the bank, so I did not fire, as I was anxious not to make holes in his skin. He just managed to get up the bank, when I finished him with a shot through the lungs, to which he instantly succumbed. He proved to be a splendid specimen of a wild lion, an old animal, but in good condition, with an excellent coat and a full, long, and silky black mane.

[Illustration: My best koodoo]

This is the largest lion it has yet been my good fortune to kill, and I have given his weight and dimensions in a former part of this chapter. After leaving the carcase of the ox he had killed, which I suppose he considered to be too near to my waggon to be altogether safe, he had gone up to Mr. Johnson’s kraal, and, forcing his way in by separating two of the poles that formed the palisade, had deliberately killed seven sheep, seven goats, and one calf. These poor animals had evidently all huddled into a corner, where they had stood paralysed by terror. I examined all the carcases carefully, and found that every one had been killed by a single bite in the head. In every case the long fang-teeth had been driven deep into the brains, which in several cases protruded from the fractured skulls. One sheep had been eaten in the kraal, and a goat had been dragged away to be devoured at leisure; and the assurance of this lion may be imagined when I say that the spot where he had taken up his quarters for the day was within three hundred yards of the compound on the top of the hill.

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