74 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



dozen or a score of these various animals, all put together, 

 is not entitled to express any but the most tentative opinion 

 as to their relative prowess and ferocity; yet on the whole 

 it seems to me that the weight of opinion among those best 

 fitted to judge is that the lion is the most formidable op- 

 ponent of the hunter, under ordinary conditions. This is 

 my own view. But we must ever keep in mind the fact 

 that the surrounding conditions, the geographical locality, 

 and the wide individual variation of temper within the 

 ranks of each species, must all be taken into account. 

 Under certain circumstances a lion may be easily killed, 

 whereas a rhino would be a dangerous foe. Under other 

 conditions the rhino could be attacked with impunity, and 

 the lion only with the utmost hazard; and one bull buffalo 

 might flee and one bull elephant charge, and yet the next 

 couple met with might show an exact reversal of behavior. 

 At any rate, during the last three or four years, in Ger- 

 man and British East Africa and Uganda, over fifty white 

 men have been killed or mauled by lions / buffaloes, elephants, 

 and rhinos; and the lions have much the largest list of 

 victims to their credit. In Nairobi church-yard I was shown 

 the graves of seven men who had been killed by lions, and 

 of one who had been killed by a rhino. The first man 

 to meet us on the African shore was Mr. Campbell, Gov- 

 ernor Jackson's A.D.C., and only a year previously he had 

 been badly mauled by a lion. We met one gentleman who 

 had been crippled for life by a lioness. He had marked 

 her into some patches of brush, and coming up, tried to put 

 her out of one thick clump. Failing, he thought she might 

 have gone into another thicket, and walked toward it; 

 instantly that his back was turned, the lioness, who had 

 really been in the first clump of brush, raced out after him, 

 threw him down, and bit him again and again before she 

 was driven off. One night we camped at the very spot 

 where, a score of years before, a strange tragedy had hap- 

 pened. It was in the early days of the opening of the coun- 

 try, and an expedition was going toward Uganda; one of 



