THE FLESH-EATERS 23 



part of the stomach, and begins operations there, but 

 at other times it begins on the soft meat between the 

 legs, about the anus and hind-quarters. The appe- 

 tite of a hungry lion is enormous ; the animal gulps 

 down huge quantities of meat, and will dispose of a 

 good-sized antelope or great part of a zebra, of 

 which it is extremely fond, in a night. Hendrik, a 

 Hottentot driver of Gordon-Gumming, was seized 

 by a lion one dark night, as he lay by the camp fire, 

 and carried off and practically devoured within fifty 

 yards of the hunter's encampment. Next morning, 

 when Gumming went out to look for the remains of 

 the poor fellow, he found but a single leg, bitten off 

 below the knee, with fragments of the Hottentot's 

 old pea-coat. Gumming took his revenge on the 

 brute, and shot the man-eater that same afternoon. 



As a rule, lions being essentially nocturnal animals, 

 are seldom encountered in the daytime. In countries 

 where they have not been much disturbed, however, 

 and have not yet learned to dread human beings and 

 to understand fire-arms, they may be more often seen 

 in broad daylight. MofFat, during his early travels 

 in what is now British Bechuanaland, saw during a 

 single day no less than nine different troops of these 

 carnivora. And Cornwallis Harris, during his expe- 

 dition through the countries now known as the 

 Transvaal and Orange River Colony, seems to have 

 constantly met with these animals during the day- 

 time, sometimes within a few score yards of his camp. 

 In Mashonaland, when the British South Africa 

 Company's Pioneers entered the country in 1890, 



