In Wildest Africa -^ 



was impossible to follow the tracks further. Several hours 

 passed before I succeeded finally in finding first one lion 

 and then the other. To kill them was no easy matter. 

 I could hear the clanking of the chains where they were 

 moving about, but I must see them before I could take 

 effective aim. Meanwhile one of the lions was making 

 frantic efforts to free himself. Supposing the irons were 

 to give way ! But these efforts were followed by moments 

 of quiet and watching. How the beasts growled ! 



I cannot agree with those who condemn indiscriminately 

 the trapping of lions. Of course, it must be done for a 

 good purpose. I should not have been able to present 

 the Imperial Natural History Museum in Berlin with such 

 beautiful and typical lions' skins had I not had recourse 

 to these traps. 



A lion story with a droll ending came to me from 

 Bagamoyo. There a lion had made itself very obnoxious, 

 and some Europeans determined to trap it. The trap 

 was soon set, and a young lion fell into it. Several men 

 armed to the teeth approached the place, to put an end to 

 the captive with powder and shot. I cannot now exactly 

 remember what happened next, but on the attempt of the 

 lion to free itself from the trap the riflemen took to their 

 heels and plunged into a pond. According to one version, 

 the lion turned out afterwards to be only a hyena ! 



At one time there was a perfect plague of lions near 

 the coast towns — Mikindani, for instance. Hungry lions 

 attacked the townsfolk on many occasions, and even poked 

 their heads inside the doors of the dwellings. 



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