42 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



more seized his victim by the fleshy part of the 

 thigh, and although pursued ran off with him for a 

 quarter of a mile. The boy's friends finally com- 

 pelled the hyaena to relinquish his prey ; before he 

 would do so the determined beast bit out a mass of 

 flesh and bolted with it, leaving the boy terribly 

 mangled, though happily the thigh was not broken. 



A little girl about eight years old, reclining in the 

 cool of the day, was attacked by four strandwolves. 

 One seized her head, another her shoulders, and the 

 remaining two her thighs ; and although the people 

 of the kraal managed to drive them off, the hyaenas 

 left her so terribly mangled that her relations gave 

 her the choice of being killed by themselves or being 

 turned out into the bush. Happily she managed to 

 reach the mission station, and being kindly treated, 

 eventually recovered. Such then was the ghastly 

 legacy left by the wars of Chaka ; one almost sym- 

 pathises with Lieutenant Moodie when he says: 

 " I often employed myself in destroying hyaenas by 

 smoking them to death in their holes." 1 



A Hottentot having carelessly left a calf in a 

 field, two hyaenas attacked it. Lieutenant Moodie, 

 accompanied by the erring herdsman, hastened to 

 the rescue, finding however that the mother of the 



1. After his assassination Chaka's body was left out all night to be 

 devoured, the remains of the tyrant thus receiving the same treatment 

 as those of his victims. In the morning the assassins, finding it untouched, 

 declared that the hyaenas would not devour a chief, and proceeded to 

 bury it, superstitiously closing up all the holes in the neighbourhood, lest 

 his spirit should emerge and pay them a visit ! 



