In Brightest Africa

by Carl Ethan Akeley

While many things about lions' habits are controversial, I think that practically everyone who has had experience with them will agree that they are not savage in the sense of killing for the mere sake of killing. There are a few isolated cases which seem to conflict with this statement, but the great mass of testimony confirms it. There was a seeming exception to this rule which happened to an English traveller and his wife in Somaliland. They were intent on getting a lion by "baiting"—that is, they killed an animal and left it as bait for the lions while they hid in a thorn boma which they built near by. There was only a small hole in the boma through which to watch and shoot. They stationed a black boy at this hole to watch while they slept. They awoke to find that a lion had stuck his head into the hole and killed the black boy—bitten his head clear off, so the local story goes. However, no one knows why the lion killed the boy in this case for, of the three possible witnesses, two were asleep and the third dead.

It is possible, of course, that the lion deliberately attacked the boma without provocation, but it seems unlikely, for lions are driven to these extremities chiefly by hunger; and in this case the lion could have satisfied his hunger by the bait that had been laid out for him. The usual man-eater is an old lion, who in the season of scattered game finds it impossible with his failing strength and speed to catch animals for food. To keep from starving he attacks the native flocks and herds, or the natives themselves. The most famous man-eaters, the lions of Tsavo, which spread such terror as almost to stop construction on a part of the Uganda railway, were, indeed, an exception to the rule. Colonel Patterson, whose classic account of them is one of the great animal stories of the world, accounted for these young, vigorous animals becoming man-eaters because some of the coolie workers who died were put in the bush unburied and the lions had acquired a taste for human flesh by eating these bodies. After this taste was acquired these lions hunted men just as the ordinary lion hunted zebras. They made a regular business of it. It was their daily fare, and they took a terrible toll before they were finally killed. But these lions were killing for food just as if they were killing zebras.

Even when forced to fight, the lion is not vindictive. If an elephant gets a man he is likely to trample on his victim and mutilate him even after he is dead. I have never known of lions doing this. On the other hand, as soon as their adversary is dead, often as soon as he is quiet, they will let him alone. The game animals on which the lions are accustomed to feed corroborate this characteristic. They know that the lion kills for food at night and they likewise know that he kills only for food, so in the daytime they do not bother about lions particularly. I have seen lions trot through a herd of game within easy striking distance of many of the animals without causing any disturbance.

So far as I know, except for the comparatively few man-eaters, lions are never the aggressors. More than that, they prefer to get out of the way of man rather than fight him, and they will put up with a good deal of disturbance and inconvenience and even pain before they will fight. But once decided to fight they will fight with an amazing courage even if there are plenty of opportunities to escape.

I had an experience which showed both these aspects of a lion's nature. Frederick M. Stephenson, John T. McCutcheon, the cartoonist, Mrs. Akeley, and I were hunting lions. I had a moving-picture camera and the others were armed with guns. One day the natives rounded up a lioness in a patch of uncommonly tall, thick grass. The beaters hesitated to go in after her, so I took a gun and McCutcheon and I joined the porters, leaving Stephenson and Mrs. Akeley outside. The grass was so thick that we had to take our rifles in both hands and push the grass down in front of us and then walk on it. We had made some progress in this manner when suddenly, as we were pushing down the grass, it was thrown violently back, jerking our rifles up and almost throwing us over. It was the lioness. We had pressed the grass down right on her back. Yet despite this intrusion she made off and did not attack us.

As she went out of the grass into the open, Stephenson shot at her and missed. Some of the boys rode after her on horseback and rounded her up in another patch of cover. By this time, however, her patience had run out. She could have run some more had she wanted to, but she didn't want to. When Stephenson approached the cover with his gun boys she took the initiative and charged. His first shot stopped her a second, but she came on again. His second shot killed her.

My first black-maned lion showed the same characteristics. He, too, preferred peace to war, although I originally disturbed him with his kill, but finally, when he declared war, although he was badly wounded, he preferred to charge two white men and thirty natives rather than try to escape.

I had gone up on the Mau Plateau to shoot topi. The plateau is about 8,000 feet above sea level there and I didn't expect to find any lions. One day I discovered two topi in a little valley between two gentle rises. I was crawling up to the top of one of the rises overlooking the valley to get a shot when I noticed some movement in the grass on the slope opposite. I thought it was another topi. As I raised myself a little to shoot I noticed that the original pair that I was hunting were gazing with fixed attention toward some movement on the far hillside. I looked again and saw an old lion get up and walk to the top of the hill, turn round facing me, and lie down to watch the valley from his side as I was watching it from mine. We were about 400 yards from each other. In the valley between were the topi, and also I noticed a dead zebra. Evidently I had disturbed him at his previous night's kill. My pony and gun boys were some distance behind and I had only one cartridge left in my double-barrelled cordite rifle. Under these conditions I reluctantly decided to go back for proper equipment. My reluctance was not merely at losing a lion but at losing that particular lion, for he had a great black mane and no one had killed a black-maned lion in that part of Africa.

By the time I got back with my cartridges and the gun boys, he had disappeared. We began beating about to see if we could find him or his trail, but without success. We did, however, find the remains of several kills, which led me to think that this single old fellow had found the neighbourhood good hunting, and was making a more or less prolonged stay. Under the circumstances I felt it wise to go to camp and get my companion, Shaw Kennedy, and our thirty beaters to hunt him out the next day.

Before going, however, I planned a campaign. Not far from where the lion had been a ravine began, which ran some distance and ended in a thick piece of forest. The sides of the ravine were covered with clumps of thick bush. Into one of these I felt sure the lion had retreated. Unless closely pushed he would not go into the forest. My plan was to enter the ravine the next day at the forest end so that he could not escape to safety among the trees, and drive up the ravine to force him out into the open.