As this happened late in the afternoon, there was no prospect of reaching water that night, so I gave orders to pitch camp, and not wishing to build a ‘boma,’ which was hardly necessary, was anxious to satisfy myself as to whether the lion was wounded, since a beast that dared to attack in daylight might prove an unpleasant neighbour during the night if not already wounded, more especially as we had several donkeys with us. When the gun-bearers came up I took my 12-bore Paradox, and, followed by the Doctor, entered the bush, and was flicking the sharp points off the aloes with a knife, never thinking for a moment that ‘John Bounder’ was close at hand. After going a few yards we found a thick drop of blood on a leaf, and I felt fairly satisfied that he would give us no further trouble during the night. However, as there was still an hour or so of daylight we decided to go on a little further, and I was still flicking off the aloe points and talking to the Doctor, when we came to a small green bush, which I took the precaution of peeping round before advancing. There lay the lion crouched flat on the ground, within seven feet of me, with his head between his paws.
The lion was unfortunately on my right, so that I could not fire except from my left shoulder, a shot which I did not care to risk, any more than I cared to walk backwards and expose the whole of my body at such close quarters before I could get a sufficiently good view to enable me to shoot from my right shoulder. Stepping back, I whispered to the Doctor that the lion was quite close, and asked him to stand ready, whilst I crept back to try and get a better view of it from another point, but by the time I had struggled through a dense clump of aloes the beast had slunk away under the shade of a black bush two or three yards off, and I could only see the tip of its tail twitching from side to side. It was quite impossible to make out which way the lion’s body lay, even with binoculars, and a shot fired at the place where I thought and hoped it might be had no effect. This made the beast move off to more favourable ground, and after a short hunt one of my gun-bearers saw it lying under a tree in a small opening. At the same moment that I saw the lion it saw me, and stood up with a growl broadside on, and I sent a Paradox bullet clean through both shoulders, which dropped it dead on the spot. It was a fine full-grown beast, with first-rate teeth and claws, but was remarkably thin. As the country for many miles round was absolutely devoid of game, excepting a few Neotragus Kirkii, this lion had in all probability wandered about for several days without food, and was goaded on by hunger to make the attack on the boy. On examination, I found my second shot with the Winchester had only caught it in the hind foot as it leapt over the aloe clump. The first shot which had gone through the aloe had missed it clean, or had lost all power of penetration—at all events, there was no mark of a bullet about its face or head.
The other instance of men being attacked in open daylight occurred near Machako’s, in Ukambani, when a small caravan of some twenty porters was attacked by a troop of twelve or thirteen lions, which they came upon when on the march. When the lions charged out of the grass the men dropped their loads and bolted, though, after the men had fired about 150 rounds of ammunition at them from a respectful distance, the lions retired. After waiting an hour or two, the men plucked up courage and returned for their loads. My friend, Captain J. W. Pringle, R. E., saw the loads when they were brought into the station, and found that several of them had been severely mauled by the lions. In this instance I am unable to account for such an unprovoked attack, unless the lions, whilst lying asleep in the grass close to the footpath, were taken by surprise and charged in self-defence, it being very improbable that they were prompted by hunger, as game was very plentiful at the time.
Only two cases of lions charging after being wounded and followed up have come under my notice. The first happened to Sir Robert Harvey when following up a wounded lioness. This beast, which he failed to stop as it came at him, jumped clean over him as he bobbed down to see the result of his shot under the smoke, but fortunately missed him, and he killed it with his second barrel.
The above instances of lions proving at all aggressive are, I think, quite exceptional, and at all events form a very small percentage, considering the great number of lions in the country, the fair number that have been killed, and the still greater number that have been wounded and got away, and I am inclined to think that both the boldness and pluck of East African lions compare very poorly with those of South Africa and the Somali country. Even when wounded, I have found them anything but plucky or savage beasts. Three out of the four lions I have myself bagged, and three others which got away wounded, never attempted to charge, although they were all followed up into bush where it was impossible to see them until fairly close, and in each instance they could see me some time before I could see them, but they merely lay and snarled, or slunk away altogether.
Lions in East Africa, when found near the coast, which is mostly thick bush country, are for the most part maneless, or nearly so. I have heard it suggested that the thick bush has something to do with this, as the long hairs of the mane get pulled out and worn away, and it is quite possible that this may be so, for the buffaloes on the coast are also very scantily covered with hair, and are of a dull slate colour from the skin showing through. In the Masai country lions have very often splendid manes, and the buffaloes, even the old bulls, are well covered with hair. This, however, may be accounted for more reasonably by the great difference in the temperature than by the more open nature of the country, the air of the higher altitudes being bracing and cool, not to say cold, whilst that on the coast is moist and muggy. Lions with both dark and light coloured manes are found in East Africa, those found north of Machako’s being darker as a rule than those further south.
Buffaloes and zebras are the two species of game on which lions mostly prey. In my own experience I have come across the remains of more buffaloes which have been killed by lions than anything else. The zebra comes next, and then the hartebeest. Since, however, the buffaloes have been decimated by disease, the zebra, of which there are still countless herds, will probably stand first. Although I have carefully examined the carcases of several buffaloes and zebras, I have never been able to discover anything about them to warrant my expressing an opinion as to how they had actually been killed by the lions. The most noticeable thing about two freshly killed buffaloes and one zebra was the terrible way in which they were lacerated about the hind-quarters, evidently by the lions at their first spring and during the subsequent desperate struggle before they actually killed them. In every case when I found a fresh kill the stomach had been torn open, and the liver, heart, and entrails had formed the first meal. On one occasion I was attracted by vultures to the spot where a lion and two lionesses had shortly before killed a cow buffalo, and I had a good opportunity of watching them before I fired, as I was well concealed. The lion was devouring the entrails, &c., and one lioness was tearing at the throat, whilst the other, which I did not see at the time, was lying under a bush close by, eating a fœtus calf which she had dragged out of the cow. After shooting the lion and severely wounding a lioness, which unfortunately got away, I carefully examined the buffalo, which was lying on its right side, with its head twisted round until the back of its head, and the curved points of both horns were resting on the ground, with its nose upwards. The soft part of the nose had been eaten off, the tongue torn out by the gullet underneath the lower jaw, and the flesh under the uppermost foreleg was also eaten away; the tail had been bitten short off at the root and was lying on the ground, and a small piece of each hind-quarter just below the tail had also gone. The stomach was torn open, the liver, heart, and part of the entrails eaten, and the fœtus calf was also half eaten. When my men had cut the remainder of the beast up to sell to the natives for flour, &c., I examined the vertebræ of the neck, but could find no signs of dislocation. When I shot the lion he disgorged in his dying struggles large pieces of buffalo skin, pieces of liver, entrails, and clots of blood, and his stomach was blown out to almost bursting point with a further accumulation of entrails, liver, blood, and pieces of flesh and skin, besides a piece of heart so large that it is a wonder that he managed to get it down. The zebra that I found about two hours after it had been killed by a lion and lioness, which latter I shot after a long hunt, had absolutely no marks on it to show how it had been killed. One ear had been bitten off, and its hind-quarters and hocks were torn and lacerated as if gashed by a knife, the cuts being so clean, but there were no marks on the throat or back of the neck. With the exception of a small piece of entrail lying on the ground, which had the appearance of having been chewed, the whole of the inside and the soft flesh and skin of the stomach were gone; the rest was untouched.
GOOD GUIDES