94 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



Homeric fashion. The lion, seeing its retreat cut 

 off, almost invariably accepted the challenge and 

 rushed upon the advancing savage, whose endeavour 

 it was to strike one blow at his assailant and 

 then fall to the ground beneath his broad shield. 

 At the same time, his friends would rush in from 

 both sides and quickly spear the lion to death, but 

 often not before one or two of them had paid the 

 penalty for their daring with their lives. Many 

 lions used to be killed annually in the olden time 

 round the outlying cattle posts in Matabeleland, 

 and many of Umziligazi's^ bravest warriors died of 

 wounds received in these gladiatorial games. Many 

 years ago I used to be very friendly with the second 

 Enduna of Bulawayo, one Bambaleli, a splendid 

 specimen of a good, brave, honest, heathen gentle- 

 man. He told me that on five occasions he had 

 been chosen to rush in on a lion that had been 

 surrounded and brought to bay. Twice he escaped 

 without a wound, thanks to the protection afforded 

 by his great shield and the quickness with which 

 his comrades had rushed in to his assistance ; but 

 in the other three encounters he had been severely 

 bitten, once in the right shoulder and twice through 

 the muscles of his thigh, and he bore the scars of 

 all these honourable wounds to his grave. The 

 fact that, on each of the occasions when he was 

 hurt, his formidable assailant had only been able 

 to get in one savage bite, shows, I think, the 

 quickness with which his friends had come to his 

 rescue. 



Before they were supplied with firearms by their 

 Bechwana masters, the Bushmen of the Kalahari 

 sometimes killed lions with poisoned arrows. Old 

 Bushmen have assured me that they had themselves 

 killed lions by this means. Their plan, they said, 

 was to creep close up to a lion lying asleep after 



^ The father of Lo Bengula. 



