308 LARGE GAME. CHAP. vi. 



porary lair. Cowardly, when there is the faintest suspi- 

 cion of danger, daring when there is none, stealthy and 

 cunning to the last degree, and provided with great 

 powers of scent and hearing, added to immense strength, 

 there is no animal so universally hated, or that causes 

 more trouble and annoyance to both hunters and the 

 peaceful natives. 



The amount of damage they do in a season to the 

 former by breaking into their game and destroying the 

 hide when time has failed to skin it, can hardly be calcu- 

 lated; not to mention such trifles as shoes, straps, and 

 in fact anything and everything left outside the camp 

 during the night. To the villagers the number of cattle 

 they annually kill is a most serious loss. They choose the 

 darkest nights, generally when it is raining, and going to 

 windward of a village allow the cattle to smell them, 

 when, if the kraal-fence is not strong, the terrified animals 

 break out, and at once become an easy prey to their cun- 

 ning foe, who, selecting a young beast, will soon run it 

 down and kill it, two or three sometimes assisting each 

 other in doing so ; or, worse still, it will attack a number 

 of cows in succession, seizing them all at one spot, 

 namely, the udder, which, with their powerful jaws and 

 great strength, they soon tear off, and go on to the next. 

 I have known no less than seven cows mortally injured in 

 this way in a night, and the natives said there were only 

 two hyenas concerned in doing it. This is not all : the 

 cowardly brutes will even attack a human being when 

 asleep, though, as I will afterwards show, they dare not 

 touch a harmless antelope, scarcely living, but aware of 

 their presence. I have seen many men who had been 



