“In two cases I have been an accessory to the death of well-known man-eaters, one of which had almost depopulated a district.... The locality in which this one committed his depredations was in the northeast corner of Zululand, where a number of refugee Amaswazi had been located, and when I arrived they had continued for nearly a year, so that many villages were deserted, and all had more or less suffered; for the brute did not confine himself to any one in particular, nor come at any regular intervals, but so timed his visits that no one was sure of his or her life from day to day. No fastenings were of any use against him, as his immense strength enabled him to force an entrance if he could not find one ready made, while the outer ring-fence, of interwoven thorns, supported by strong posts, which guards all native villages, and is often of great height, offered no obstacle to his powers of jumping, a single bound being always sufficient to land him inside.
“He usually confined himself to killing a single individual, and would claw one out from under the blanket or skin under which, with covered heads, they cowered in terror on his arrival; but on the two or three occasions in which he had met with opposition, and when he had been wounded with assagais, he had killed every soul in the hut, and so dreadfully mangled them that their bodies almost defied recognition.
“I was staying at the villages for some weeks, first at one and then at another, as they suited the position of the game, or where I happened to find myself at night; but though I heard of the lion having attacked one either just before or just after I had been there, I never happened to meet it, and the ignorant natives became anxious for my presence, saying that their enemy feared to go where I was.
“This, however, was not destined to last. One sultry evening I arrived at the outermost village, having been forced to leave the spoor of a herd of elephants for want of ammunition, and being very tired, I determined to sleep at it, sending on two of my men to fetch some from the place which I made my headquarters. Tired as I was with my exertions on an unusually hot day, I soon fell asleep in the hut that had been given up to our use; but, as the heat was stifling, I was not at all surprised at being awakened towards midnight by a heavy thunderstorm, which crashed round us for half an hour or more. At last the hush came that always accompanies the tremendous rain which follows, and seems to quench such storms, broken only by the heavy splashing of big drops, and the gurgle of the water that flooded the ground, and I should soon have been asleep again had not a drop come splash into my face through the ill-thatched roof, almost immediately followed by a small stream, of which it had been the advanced guard. This necessitated my looking out for a drier spot, when suddenly out of the quiet of the descending rain, came such a confused clamor of shrieks and cries, of yelling and moaning, that until I heard the voice of the lion, I was utterly unable to account for it. This lasted for full half a minute, and then such a blood-curdling scream of mingled pain and despair came as I hope I may never hear again, and which haunted my dreams for many a month after.
“My men, and among them two old hunters, each of whom had killed several lions, shrunk crouching back to the further end of the hut, returning no answer to my words when I told them to come out with me and face the beast, though, as I opened the hut entrance, and looked out on the pitch darkness, it was evident how useless any such attempt would be. The death-yell we had heard was followed by silence for some time, during which the brute was probably departing with its victim, and the natives were still afraid of its return; then the usual noisy lamentations for the dead broke forth, and were continued without intermission until daylight, though I was so tired that, without expecting it, I fell asleep again, and did not wake any more that night.
“There was little to tell when morning did break. The lion had hit upon the most crowded hut of all, the one in which the people who had given place to us were sleeping in addition to its regular owners, and had picked out a young married woman, taking her from among several, without injuring any one else; as they said—‘a man does not stab more than one of his herd of cattle when he is hungry.’
“Previous to this, on my first arrival, the head man of the district had come and asked me whether I would assist him to destroy this brute, as, if so, he would turn out with all his people, and beat up the country until it was found; and in point of fact we had already done this, on the occasion of the chief’s uncle having been carried off; but the ground was so dry and hard then that our best spoorers failed to hit off the track. To-day, however, as the rain had ceased a few minutes after its departure, there could be no doubt about finding it, and as soon as I awoke I sent off to the chief to ask him to come with his men, saying that, whether he had arrived or not, I should take up the trail at nine o’clock.
“I did not at this time know that the woman who was the last victim was his relation, but when my messenger came back and told me so, adding that the chief was fearfully angry, it did not surprise me to hear that runners had been sent out already, and that he had threatened to drive out of the country any one old enough to carry a spear who remained behind, and that if I could wait until the sun had reached a certain part of the heavens (till about ten o’clock), he would join me.
“I had already had breakfast when this news came, and to save time I took a hunter and a spoorer (tracker) with me and followed the lion. About two hundred yards off we found the spot where he had made his disgusting meal, and then the track led right away towards a stream, nearly a mile distant, where he had quenched his thirst. Keeping steadily on, he passed through several covers quite strong enough to have held him, and through which we had to pass with the utmost caution, until, at length, he came out on to the open, and headed in a direction that we knew could lead nowhere but to the Umbeka bush, the thickest jungle for miles around. As this was still nearly four miles off, I sent one man back to tell the people where to come to, and kept on with the hunter.
“On reaching the jungle, which covered the entire side of a hill, and was stony and broken to the last degree, besides having its undergrowth formed of impenetrable cactus, we did not of course attempt to enter, but separating, walked round it, the upper and more rugged portion falling to my share, and carefully examined every inch of the ground to see whether by any chance he had again left it; however, no vestige of his spoor could be seen, and by the time we got back to our starting-point, the whole of Tekwane’s people were in sight.