in the interior never burying their dead, but un- ceremoniously leaving the corpses of their friends exposed in the forest, or on the plain, as the case may be, a prey to wild beasts or the vulture; and I can readily imagine that a lion thus "blooded," so to say, would have little hesitation, when oppor- tunity presented itself, of springing upon and carry- ing off the traveller or native that came in his way.
But the practice of getting rid of the dead in the way spoken of does not exist in all parts of the in- terior, where, nevertheless, "man-eaters" are to be found. I am therefore inclined to believe that the habit of certain lions making a meal of a man, when they can get hold of him, arises rather from incapacity on their part to secure their ordinary prey than from anything else; and I have the greater reason to think this is the case, since young lions are seldom found to indulge in human food. When the beast becomes crippled, whether from wounds or old age, and is no longer able to grapple with the wild animals of his native haunts, it is only reason- able to suppose he will seize the first and most favourable opportunity of satisfying his hunger, and this the exposed situation of the native villages too often affords him.
Strangely enough, the lion, it is confidently asserted, would rather dine off a black man than a white, and the cause assigned is somewhat singular. "The beast in question," says Thunberg, "had much rather eat a Hottentot than a Christian
THE LION.
—perhaps because the Hottentot, being besmeared with fat, always stinks,* and because, as he never eats salt or spices, the juices of his body are not so acrid."
In certain parts of Southern Africa that have been devastated and partially depopulated by bloody intestine wars, lions have become so numerous and daring, and from feeding on the bodies of the slain, have acquired such a taste for human flesh, that the remaining inhabitants, to escape their clutches, have been necessitated to erect their huts in most ex- traordinary situations.
"Having travelled one hundred miles," says Moffatt, "five days after leaving Morega we came to the first cattle outposts of the Matabele, when we halted by a fine rivulet. My attention was arrested by a beautiful and gigantic tree, standing in a defile leading into an extensive and woody ravine, between a high range of mountains. Seeing some individuals employed on the ground under its shade, and the conical points of what looked like houses in miniature protruding through its ever- green foliage, I proceeded thither, and found that the tree was inhabited by several families of Bakones, the aborigines of the country. I ascended by the notched trunk, and found, to my amazement, no less than seventeen of these aerial abodes, and three
* This hint, it is to be hoped, will not be altogether thrown away by certain individuals of my acquaintance, not remarkable for their cleanly habits, so that, when they next visit the African wilds, they may be induced, if only in self-defense, to take with them a change of linen and a good supply of soap.
HOUSES OF THE BAKONES.
others unfinished. On reaching the topmost hut, about thirty feet from the ground, I entered, and sat down. Its only furniture was the hay which covered the floor, a spear, a spoon, and a bowl full of locusts. Not having eaten anything that day, and, from the novelty of my situation, not wishing to return immediately to the waggons, I asked a woman who sat at the door, with a babe at her breast, permission to eat. This she granted with pleasure, and soon brought me some locusts in a powdered state. Several more females came from the neigh- bouring roosts, stepping from branch to branch to see the stranger, who was to them as great a curiosity as the tree was to him. I then visited the different abodes, which were on several principal branches. The structure of these houses was very simple. An oblong scaffold, about seven feet wide, is formed of straight sticks. On one end of this platform a small cone is formed, also of straight sticks, and thatched with grass. A person can nearly stand upright in it; the diameter of the floor is about six feet. The house stands on the end of the oblong, so as to leave a little square space before the door. On the day previous I had passed several villages, some containing forty houses, all built on poles about seven or eight feet from the ground, in the form of a circle; the ascent and descent is by a knotty branch of a tree placed in front of the house. In the centre of the circle there is always a heap of the bones of game they have killed. Such were the domiciles of the impoverished thousands of the
THE LION.
aborigines of the country, who, having been scattered and plundered by Moselekatse, had neither herd nor stall, but subsisted on locusts, roots, and the chase, They adopted this mode of architecture to escape the lions which abounded in the country. During the day the families descended to the shade beneath to dress their daily food. When the inhabitants in- creased, they supported the augmented weight on the branches by upright sticks; but when lightened of their load, they removed them for fire- wood."
The lion, as with others of the feline family, seldom attacks his prey openly, and then only when compelled by extreme hunger. For the most part he steals upon it in the manner of a cat, or ambushes himself near to the water, or a pathway frequented by game. At such times he lies crouched on his belly in a thicket, until the animal approaches sufficiently near, when with one prodigious bound he pounces upon it. In most cases he is success- ful, but should his intended victim escape, as at times happens, from his having miscalculated the distance, he either makes a second, or even a third bound, which, however, usually proves fruitless, or he returns disconcerted to his hiding-place, there to wait for another opportunity.
The bound of the lion, when about to seize his prey, is terrific. Though I for my own part should not have imagined it to exceed twenty-five to thirty feet, yet others estimate it to be very ranch more. "From the spot where a noble male lion
IMMENSE BOUNDS.
had lain to where he alighted," says Delegorgue, "measured eighteen* of my paces," and elsewhere the same author, when speaking of another of those beasts, accidentally disturbed by him from its slumbers, informs us:—"He rose, gathered himself up, and bounded forward (presenting to us his broadside), to alight at fifteen paces distance, when he bounded again. He seemed to fly. His mane re- sembled a pair of wings; but I and my companions were so confounded and amazed at the sight, as to put all thoughts of firing out of our heads. The rapidity of the animal's bounds would, indeed, have rendered the attempt useless—an arrow from the bow, or the falcon when stooping on the quarry, are not more rapid in their flight."
The height to which the lion can leap is also very great—otherwise, why are the pit-falls in Algeria for the capture of this animal, as Gerard tells us is the case, ten metres in depth. Moffatt, indeed, speaks of the beast jumping on to a rock ten to twelve feet in altitude; and Thomson, when describing a lion-hunt, says:—"He (the lion) bounded over the adjacent thicket like a cat over a foot-stool, clearing brake and bushes twelve or fifteen feet high as readily as if they had been tufts of grass." Dele- gorgue's evidence is to the like effect. After telling us that he had one evening killed a Cato blebas
* I can quite credit Delegorgue's statement as to the extent of ground covered by the lion in its bound; the rather as, with people generally such at least is the case in Sweden the pace usually em- braces little more than two feet. Moreover, if I mistake not, a horse in England has been known to leap a rivulet thirty-four feet broad.
THE LION.
Gorgon, and had only time to take away the skin and head, and that his Caffirs, who were heavily laden, expressed a desire to secure the flesh of the animal by placing it for the night in the fork of a tree, at an elevation of fourteen feet from the ground, he goes on to say, "I assisted them in the operation, and we returned to camp. The next day, at dawn, my men proceeded
