80 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



glimpses of the tawny bodies of the beasts as they trod 

 stealthily forward through the sunburned grass, alongside 

 or a little behind him. Then the grass grew short, and the 

 lions halted and continued to gaze after him until he dis- 

 appeared over a rise. 



Everywhere throughout the country we were crossing 

 were signs that the lion was lord and that his reign was 

 cruel. There were many lions, for the game on which they 

 feed was extraordinarily abundant. They occasionally took 

 the ostriches or stock of the settlers, or ravaged the herds 

 and flocks of the natives, but not often; for their favor- 

 ite food was yielded by the swarming herds of kongoni 

 and zebras, on which they could prey at will. Later we 

 found that in this region they rarely molested the buffalo, 

 even where they lived in the same reedbeds; and this though 

 elsewhere they habitually prey on the buffalo. But where 

 zebras and 'hartebeests could be obtained without effort, 

 it was evidently not worth their while to challenge such 

 formidable quarry. Every "kill" I saw was a kongoni or 

 a zebra; probably I came across fifty of each. One zebra 

 kill, which was not more than eighteen hours old (after 

 the lapse of that time the vultures and marabouts, not to 

 speak of the hyenas and jackals, leave only the bare bones), 

 showed just what had occurred. The bones were all in 

 place, and the skin still on the lower legs and head. The 

 animal was lying on its belly, the legs spread out, the neck 

 vertebra crushed; evidently the lion had sprung clean on 

 it, bearing it down by his weight while he bit through the 

 back of the neck, and the zebra's legs had spread out as the 

 body yielded under the lion. One fresh kongoni kill showed 

 no marks on the haunches, but a broken neck and claw 

 marks on the face and withers; in this case the lion's hind 

 legs had remained on the ground, while with his fore paws 

 he grasped the kongoni's head and shoulders, holding it 

 until the teeth splintered the neck bone. 



One or two of our efforts to get lions failed, of course; 

 the ravines we beat did not contain them, or we failed to 



