XXVI SOUTHWARD ONCE MORE 325 



Knowing- his weakness for sweet coffee, I had a 

 good supply made, which he drank with great 

 gusto, sitting on his skinny and sun-cracked heels 

 at my tent door. While sipping his fifth or sixth 

 cup he asked me through an interpreter if I re- 

 membered his warning about the man-eating lion. 

 "Yes," I replied, "as he very nearly got one of us, 

 and would probably have succeeded if we had not 

 been put on our guard by you." The old chief then 

 shook his head very gravely, smacked his lips two or 

 three times, and said that the lion had since then 

 become very bad indeed, and we must be more 

 careful than ever, as everyone in his manyatta 

 was terrified of him, and only a couple of nights 

 previously he had carried off a leading elder in 

 the tribe out of his hut, which was only about 

 200 yards from the place where our tent was 

 pitched. 



When I asked for further details of this tragic 

 affair, he told me the following story. 



The manyatta, it appeared, had been closed as 

 usual, and all the cows, sheep, and goats were 

 safely kraaled inside it ; the warriors and elders and 

 young women and children were all asleep, while 

 three or four old women, as is the custom, kept 

 watch over the flocks, sitting beside the embers of a 

 fire. From time to time there came to them the 

 distant roar of a lion, reverberating from the 



