yl/i Elephant AdvcntJtrc 



499 



Mr Chapman instances the fact that the 

 lion, although plentiful and daring in some 

 places, must be rapidly diminishing in num- 

 bers, for notwithstanding all his advantages 

 he only killed seven during all the years of 

 his wanderings. In some parts the natives 

 do not kill lions, regarding these animals as 

 hunters of game which they turn to their own 

 account. On the other hand, the lions some- 

 times look upon the natives from the same 

 stand-point of their own advantage, treating 

 villages of them as private preserves of game. 

 The writer gives an instance of this in 

 the district where he found them most nume- 

 rous : — 



" In parting with my cattle, I requested Av.raal to 

 permit me to send them on to the extreme eastern 

 boundary of his country, at Elephants' Klof, but he 

 dissuaded me from this project, assuring me that the 

 lions had of late become so daring that no human being 

 could live there. The Damaras and bushmen who 

 had escaped their ferocity had been obliged to remove 

 to a district north-east of this place. The cowardice 

 shewn by these poor people had of late made the 

 lions so bold that nothing but human flesh seemed to 

 satisfy them, nor did their huts, fires, and fences afford 

 them the slightest protection. Some of Awraal's 

 jieople, who were returning the other day from a giraffe 

 hunt, were assailed by a troop of these daring animals 

 in open daylight. The lions sprang upon the pack- 

 oxen, who ran wildly about under the M'eight of 

 their rough jockeys, plunging madl)- until fortunately 



they had disencumbered themselves of their bundles 

 of meat as well as their mde riders ; the lions con- 

 tenting themselves, after having a few shots fired at 

 them, with the meat they had seized. Another party 

 of these hunters the same day came upon the carcase 

 of a Damara recently killed and partly eaten, and 

 every night this same party were kept awake or had 

 to make circular fires around them, leaving their dogs 

 to fight off the brutes until daylight. So changeable 

 and uncertain is the character of the lion that in some 

 districts by daylight he is timid as a mouse, and will 

 scarce venture to attack man even by stealth and by 

 night ; but when he comes upon a famished or mean- 

 spirited race, he keeps near a village and treats its 

 inhabitants as though they were his flock of cattle, 

 killing them as hunger urges. A hungry lion is a 

 most daring animal ; there is nothing that he will not 

 dare in broad daylight and in the most impudent 

 manner, driving you off from your own game, or 

 following you up in open ground under every dis- 

 advantage to himself. But such cases are rare, and 

 they are generally either driven to it by hunger, past 

 success, or a keen relish for human above all other 

 flesh. The general disposition of a lion, like that of 

 all other animals, is to avoid man, and the districts 

 ■which he haunts in South Africa being as yet abun- 

 dantly stocked with game, man seldom becomes his 

 victim." — (vol. i., p. 420.) "The natives, too, assert 

 that lions and all other beasts of prey are more daring 

 when the men are away from their houses and villages, 

 which they soon smell out." — (vol. ii., p. 303.) 



^^'e heartily commend INIr Chapman's 

 volumes to the notice of naturalists as well as 

 to all lovers of the chase. 



