CHAPTER XVII 



ADVENTURES WITH LIONS AND A EHINO 



Wonderful lion story — officers' escape from lions — pig-sticking — 

 an exciting rhino adventure. 



It goes without saying that during one's stay in 

 Africa one hears many lion stories, some unfor- 

 tunately true, others grossly exaggerated. Natur- 

 ally, when any one has a big adventure with a wild 

 animal, it gets repeated any number of times and 

 everybody hears of it, so that a tale very soon be- 

 comes general property. All the same, I will risk 

 telling a " chestnut," to use a slang expression, as it I 

 is one of the most extraordinary lion stories I ever 

 heard. My husband told it to me. The first time 

 he travelled down the East Coast of Africa in 1901 

 he had as a travelling companion an Italian, one of 

 three people concerned in the story, who told it to 

 him. 



It was in the days of man-eaters, when they I. 

 were constantly making meals off some of the ||,. 

 luckless coolies engaged in making the Uganda 

 Railway ; they caused an endless amount of 

 trouble, and many were their victims before they 



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