I have known a herd of cattle, after one of their number had been killed by a lion, travel more than twenty miles without feeding, evidently in a state of terror all the time. On the other hand, I was lying in my blankets at my camp on the Hanyani river, in Mashunaland, one day early in 1885, just in the throes of a sharp attack of fever and ague, when my cattle-herd came rushing in, saying that there was a lion amongst my cattle, and that it was killing a heifer. This was about two o'clock in the afternoon. Pulling myself together, I had one of my horses saddled up, and calling my dogs, rode out to see what had happened. I found my cattle, over fifty altogether in number, all feeding quietly not 400 yards away from my camp, just where they were, my herd-boy said, when the lion came amongst them. As it turned out, it was a lioness. She had clawed a three-year-old heifer in the flanks and on the hind-quarters, but had either been kicked off by the heifer itself or driven off by the rest of the herd. At any rate, the sudden appearance of this lioness in their midst had created no panic amongst the cattle. I had a chase after this lioness with my dogs, but she crossed the river and got into some very thick bush, and as I could not get a sight of her and was feeling very unwell, I returned to camp.
In 1887, one day about noon, four lions—two males and two females—attacked my oxen and killed two of them, but without apparently alarming the others in the slightest degree, as they never ran away nor showed any sign of having been frightened. One dark night early in 1892, I was camped near the Revue river, in South-East Africa, and my oxen were lying loose round the waggon, as I thought there were no lions in the neighbourhood. About midnight five lions came up to reconnoitre, and my oxen no doubt smelt them, for they jumped up and stampeded in a body. As they ran, the lions caught and pulled down one of them. The next morning I thought I might possibly have to follow my frightened oxen a long way before overtaking them, but I found them feeding quietly, and showing no signs of having been terrified, only a few hundred yards away. On the whole, I do not think that domestic animals have that ingrained and instinctive fear of lions with which they are usually credited, though the smell of these animals is doubtless disagreeable to them.
CHAPTER VI
NOTES ON THE SPOTTED HYÆNA
Character of hyænas—Contrasted with that of wolves—Story illustrating the strength and audacity of a spotted hyæna—How a goat was seized and carried off—A mean trick—Boldness of hyænas near native villages—More suspicious in the wilderness—Very destructive to native live stock—Will sometimes enter native huts—Giving an old woman to the hyænas—How the smelling out of witches benefited the hyænas—"Come out, missionary, and give us the witch"—Number of hyænas infesting Matabeleland in olden times—Trials for witchcraft in Matabeleland—Food of hyænas—Strength of jaws—Charged by a wounded hyæna—Heavy trap broken up—Killing hyænas with set guns—Hyæna held by dogs—Hyæna attacked by wild dogs—Pace of hyænas—Curious experience on the Mababi plain—The hyæna's howl—Rhinoceros calf killed by hyænas—Smell of hyænas—Hyæna meat a delicacy—Small cows and donkeys easily killed by hyænas—Size and weight of the spotted hyæna—Number of whelps.
It has always appeared to me that the qualities and characteristics of the African spotted hyæna have met with somewhat scant recognition at the hands of writers on sport, travel, and natural history, for this animal is usually tersely described as a cowardly, skulking brute, and then dismissed with a few contemptuous words.
Yet I think that the spotted hyæna of Africa is quite as dangerous and destructive an animal as the wolf of North America, which is usually treated with respect, sometimes with sympathy, by its biographers, though I cannot see that wolves are in any way nobler in character than hyænas. Both breeds roam abroad by night, ever crafty, fierce, and hungry, and both will be equally ready to tear open the graves and devour the flesh of human beings, should the opportunity present itself, whether on the shores of the Arctic Sea, where men's skins are yellowy brown, or beneath the shadow of the Southern Cross, where they are sooty black. There is nothing really noble, though much that is interesting, in the nature of either wolves or hyænas, but neither of these animals ought to be despised. Hyænas are big, powerful, dangerous brutes, and at night often show great determination and courage in their attempts to obtain food at the expense of human beings. The following story will illustrate, I think, both the strength and the audacity of a spotted hyæna.
I was once camped many years ago near a small native village on the high veld of Mashunaland to the south-east of the present town of Salisbury. A piece of ground some fifty yards long by twenty in breadth had been enclosed by a small light hedge made of thornless boughs, as it was supposed that there were no lions in this part of the country. In the midst of this enclosure my waggon was standing one night with the oxen tied to the yokes, and my two shooting horses fastened to the wheels. On the previous day I had shot three eland bulls, and had had every scrap of the meat as well as the skins and heads carried to my waggon, and on the evening of the following day there were a large number of natives in my camp from the surrounding villages. These men had brought me an abundant supply of native beer, ground nuts, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, maize, etc., and as I, on my side, had given them several hundredweights of meat, both they and my own boys were preparing to make a night of it in my encampment.