258 FURTHER DESCRIPTION OF AFRICA. 



erally catch them only in pits. Indeed, a successful hunt, with a 

 large amount of booty, is a very rare occurrence. Although the 

 woods are filled with game, the traveler seldom comes across them, 

 and it is a mistaken notion to imagine that one has but to enter the 

 high woods of the Tropics, and fire away right and left, in order to 

 bring home an abundance of food. 



Of the larger beasts of prey, the leopard is represented; it is 

 met with all along the west coast, and is erroneously termed a tiger. 

 It is very abundant in certain districts, and particularly dangerous 

 to the herds of goats and flocks of sheep belonging to the factors 

 and the Negroes; indeed, it sometimes attacks men. When our 

 traveler was spending a few days in a village of Banschaka, it hap- 

 pened that a woman who went late at night to a well about half a 

 mile from the huts did not return, and on the following day evident 

 traces of the disaster were discovered. It was, as usual, firmly 

 believed among all the Negroes of the west coast, that the event 

 was not in the natural order of things, but that some one in the 

 village, transformed into a leopard, had devoured the woman. 



SWIFT PUNISHMENT. 



The family of the unhappy woman went to the priest and 

 magician of the place, who soon discovered the culprit, and sen- 

 tenced him to eat the poisonous bark of a tree, which paralyzes the 

 action of the heart, and occasions certain death if it is not speedily 

 expelled from the system. 



It may be readily imagined that accidents frequently occur in 

 the great African hunts, as it is quite impossible to speculate upon 

 the species of animals that may be driven into the net. One day a 

 native was suddenly attacked and was killed by a leopard within a 

 mile of my station. The orass had been fired, and the animals 

 instinctively knew that they were pursued. 



The man went to drink at a stream close to some high bushes, 

 when a leopard pounced upon him without the slightest warning. 

 A native who was close to the spot rushed up to the rescue, and 

 threw his spear with such dexterity that he struck the leopard 

 through the neck while it had the man in its mouth, killing it upon 



