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.