LIONS. 51 



finishing the operation with a few bites through 

 the neck of the victim. Meanwhile the off-horse 

 had got mixed up with the harness and had fallen, 

 failing to regain his feet before the lion had him 

 by the throat in a fatal grip. 



The new arrivals, after clearing the road of the 

 dead horses, attached Botha's cart to the waggon, 

 and towed it and its belongings to Waterberg, 

 whither he was bound on official business, I believe. 

 The whole of that road between Pretoria and 

 Zoutpansberg was then infested by a very daring 

 lot of lions, and one man-eater had his habitat a 

 few miles to the north of the Waterberg settle- 

 ment. He killed at least nine white travellers, not 

 to mention a lot of Kaffirs, previous to his 

 execution by special commands. These lions did 

 their evil deeds mostly in broad daylight, and 

 during a journey along that road with Zoutpans- 

 berg as my objective, shortly after Botha's adven- 

 ture, three of them refused to allow my people to 

 fetch water from a little spring west of the road, 

 and I had to knock over one of the trio before 

 getting a supply. The other two disappeared after 

 sniffing at their dead friend and while I was re- 

 loading my single muzzle-loading duck gun, which 



