208 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xvi 



hobble. Later in the day the donkey did not appear 

 to be well and was re-examined : the top of the animal's 

 head appeared as if it consisted of skin only ; no bone 

 could be felt. The lion had smitten the head of the 

 donkey so forcibly, and broken it in, that it appeared to 

 be devoid of bone : later in the day the donkey was 

 shot. 



Lions are shy of a tethered animal if they see the 

 rope. Drake-Brockman, in his account of the Mammals 

 of Somaliland (1910), refers to a wary lion which he 

 tried to entice within the range of his rifle on three 

 successive nights. At last, in order to enable the lion 

 to gorge himself, so that he could be more easily 

 followed, a donkey was tied to a tree. In the middle 

 of the night the hunter was disturbed by much noise 

 and dust ; amidst the dust the donkey was " standing 

 under the wall of the zareba w r ith a small uprooted 

 tree by his side." 



In the morning the footprints of the lion were found 

 round the place where the donkey had been tied to 

 the tree, which it pulled up in its fright and dragged to 

 camp. The sand-marks indicated that the lion had not 

 merely walked round and round the donkey, but had 

 crouched within a few yards of him and whisked the 

 sand with his tail. 



Schillings, who had excellent opportunities of ob- 

 serving the manner in which a lion kills, states that it 

 creeps up towards its prey and springs upon and kills it 

 with a bite on the back of the neck. 



It is quite certain that when lions attack human 

 beings they do not kill them "on the spot," as the 

 phrase goes, unless they seize them by the head ; then 

 death is instantaneous. All who have read Patterson's 

 thrilling account of the Man-Eaters of Tsavo, will 

 remember that some of the victims, even after they 

 had been dragged through the thorn bushes forming 

 the boma, could be heard shouting whilst in the grip of 

 the lion. 



