Hunting the Lions

by R. M. Ballantyne

When a hungry lion is watching for prey, the sight of any animal will make him commence stalking it. On one occasion a man was very busy stalking a rhinoceros, when, happening to glance behind him, he found to his consternation that a lion was stalking him! he escaped by springing up a tree.

The strength of the lion is tremendous, owing to the immense mass of muscle around its jaws, shoulders, and forearms. What one hears, however, of his sometimes seizing an ox or a horse in his mouth and running away with it, as a cat does with a mouse, and even leaping hedges, etcetera, is nonsense. Dr Livingstone says that most of the feats of strength he has seen performed by lions consisted, not in carrying, but dragging or trailing the carcass along the ground.

He usually seizes his prey by the flank near the hind leg, or by the throat below the jaw. He has his particular likings and tit-bits, and is very expert in carving out the parts of an animal that please him best. An eland may be sometimes disembowelled by a lion so completely that he scarcely seems cut up at all, and the bowels and fatty parts of the interior form a full meal for the lion, however large or hungry he may be. His pert little follower the jackal usually goes after him, sniffing about and waiting for a share, and is sometimes punished for his impudent familiarity with a stroke of the lion’s paw, which of course kills him.

Lions are never seen in herds, but sometimes six or eight—probably one family—are seen hunting together. Much has been said and written about the courage of the lion, and his ability to attack and kill any other animal. His powers in this respect have been overrated. It is questionable if a single lion ever attacks a full-grown buffalo. When he assails a calf, the cow will rush upon him, and one toss from her horns is sufficient to kill him. The amount of roaring usually heard at night, when a buffalo is killed, seems to indicate that more than one lion has been engaged in the fight. They never attack any elephants, except the calves. “Every living thing,” writes Livingstone, “retires before the lordly elephant, yet a full-grown one would be an easier prey to the lion than a rhinoceros. The lion rushes off at the mere sight of this latter beast!”

When a lion grows too old to hunt game, he frequently retires to spend the decline of life in the suburbs of a native village, where he is well content to live by killing goats. A woman or a child happening to go out at night sometimes falls a prey also. Being unable, of course, to alter this style of life, when once he is reduced to it, he becomes habitually what is styled a “man-eater,” and from this circumstance has arisen the idea that when a lion has once tasted human flesh he prefers it to any other. In reality a “man-eater” is an old fellow who cannot manage to get anything else to eat, and who might perhaps be more appropriately styled a woman and child eater! When extreme old age comes upon him in the remote deserts, far from human habitations, he is constrained to appease the cravings of hunger with mice! The African lion is of a tawny colour, like that of some mastiffs. The mane in the male is large, and gives the idea of great power. In some the ends of the hair are black, and these go by the name of black-maned lions, but, as a whole, all of them look of a tawny yellow colour.

Having said thus much about his general character and appearance, we shall resume the thread of our story, and show how the lions behaved to Tom Brown and his friends the very night after the event narrated in the last chapter.

The hunters had got back to the wagons, and were about to turn in for the night, in order to recruit for the work of the following day, when the sky became overcast, and gave every indication of a coming storm. A buffalo bull had been shot by Pearson an hour before the arrival of our hero and his companions, and the Caffres were busily engaged on his carcass. A fire had been lighted, the animal cut up, and part of him roasted, and the natives alternately ate a lump of roasted flesh and an equal quantity of the inside raw! When the sky began to darken, however, they desisted for a time, and set about making preparations for the coming storm.

It burst upon them ere long with awful fury and grandeur, the elements warring with incredible vehemence. Rain fell in such floods that it was scarcely possible to keep the fires burning, and the night was so pitchy dark that the hand could scarcely be seen when held close to the eyes. To add to the horror of the scene, crashing peals of thunder appeared to rend the sky, and these were preceded by flashes of lightning so vivid that each left the travellers with the impression of being stone-blind.

After an hour or two the storm passed by, leaving them drenched to the skin. However, the fires were stirred up, and things made as comfortable as circumstances would admit of.

Just a little before daybreak they were all wakened by the bellowing of the oxen and the barking of dogs.