Ill ELEPHANT ATTACKED BY LIONS 65 



distance of the shooting hole where he was lying 

 one night watching for elephants coming to drink 

 at Tamasanka vley on the old road to the Zambesi. 

 This incident had occurred only a few nights before 

 I met Engelbreght at the vley in question. But 

 it happened so long ago (in 1874) that I cannot 

 remember anything more than that the elephant 

 was held up by the lions for some hours, and that 

 the trumpeting of the former was accompanied by 

 the loud growling of the latter, and that when my 

 informant examined the ground where the combat 

 had taken place, the next morning, he found a great 

 deal of thorn bush trampled down by the elephant, 

 and some blood on the ground. The former, how- 

 ever, although probably it had been badly bitten 

 in the trunk and legs, had kept the lions from its 

 throat, and had finally beaten them off and made 

 good its retreat. Michael Engelbreght was at that 

 time a man of over sixty years of age, and as he 

 had been a hunter from his youth upwards, in the 

 golden days of South African hunting, he must have 

 had a vast experience of the habits of wild animals, 

 but I well remember that he spoke of this incident 

 of an elephant having been attacked by lions as 

 wonderful and almost incredible. 



I have, however, heard of another case of an 

 elephant having been attacked and killed by lions. 



When passing through Kimberley in 1895, I met 

 my old friend Mr. F. S. Arnot, who has done such 

 splendid work as a pioneer missionary in Central 

 Africa, and who is an absolutely reliable man, and 

 he then told me a story of an elephant having been 

 killed by lions near Lake Mweru. Hearing last 

 year that Mr. Arnot was in England, I wrote and 

 asked him if he would kindly tell me this story again, 

 as I wanted to put it on record. In the course of 

 his answer to my letter Mr. Arnot wrote : " The 

 lion story I told you may appear rather tall to some, 



F 



