CH. xij THE BUFFALO PLAGUE 283 



W'^here zebra iiiid other game are abundant, as on the 

 Athi plains, Rons do not meddle with such formidable 

 quarry as buffalo ; on Heatley's farm lions sometimes 

 made tlieir lairs in the same papyrus swamp with the 

 buft'alo, but hardly ever molested them. In many 

 ))laces, however, the lion preys largely, and in some 

 places chiefly, on the buffalo. The hunters of wide 

 experience with wliom I conversed, men like Tarlton, 

 ('uninohame, and Home, were unanimous in stating 

 that where a sir.gle lion killed a buffalo they had always 

 found that the buffalo was a cow or immature bull, and 

 that whenever they had found a full-grown bull thus 

 killed, several lions had been engaged in the job. 

 Home had once found the carcass of a big bull whicli 

 liad been killed and eaten by lions, and near by lay a 

 dead lioness with a great rip in her side, made by the 

 buffalo's horn in the figlit in wliich he succumbed. 

 Even a buffalo cow, if fairly pitted against a single lion, 

 would probably stand an even chance, but of course 

 the ffght never is fair, the lion's aim being to take his 

 prey unawares and get a death grip at the outset, and 

 then, unless his hold is broken, he cannot be seriously 

 injured. 



Twenty years ago the African buffalo were smitten 

 with one of tliose overwhelming disasters which are ever 

 occiu'ring and recurring in the animal world. Africa is 

 not only the land, beyond all others, subject to odious 

 and terrible insect plagues of every conceivable kind, 

 but is also peculiarly liable to cattle murrains. About 

 the year 1889, or shortly before, a \'irulent form of 

 rinderpest started among the domestic cattle and wild 

 buffalo almost at the northern border of the buffalo's 

 range, and within the next few years worked gradually 

 southward to beyond the Zambesi. It wrought dreadful 



