20 AFRICAN ADVENTURE STORIES 



child-like people who think of peril only when it 

 stares them in the face and forget it half an 

 hour later. They have no newspapers, it is true, 

 but they know as soon as a man-eating lion 

 appears in a vicinity, and they must appreciate 

 the danger, yet they roam about at night the 

 greatest danger time without weapons or lights. 

 They even sleep in the open or, at the best, in 

 low thorn-brush enclosures over which a lion can 

 easily spring. A single man-eating lion has 

 been known to kill more than thirty natives 

 within six weeks' or two months' time. 



Few white men are killed by man-eaters, for 

 white men seldom venture far from civilisation 

 without firearms, and when on safari outfit 

 and men they sleep in tents, keep fires burning 

 at night and armed guards watching over the 

 camp. 



In late December I was camped with a small 

 safari in the Ulucania Hills, two days' march 

 from Nairobi, and one morning discovered two 

 strange Kikuyus in camp. From the head man 

 I learned that they were members of a party of 

 men and women that was on its way to Nairobi. 

 About midnight they had been attacked by a 

 lion and had scattered. The two men had wan- 



