344 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



rine ravens and black and white crows came familiarly 

 around the tents. A young eland bull, quite as tame as a 

 domestic cow, was picketed, now here, now there, about us. 

 Home was breaking it to drive in a cart. 



During our stay another district commissioner, Mr. 

 Piggott, came over on a short visit; it was he who the pre- 

 ceding year, while at Neri, had been obliged to undertake 

 the crusade against the rhinos, because, quite unprovoked, 

 they had killed various natives. He told us that at the 

 same time a man-eating leopard made its appearance, and 

 killed seven children. It did not attack at night, but in the 

 daytime, its victims being the little boys who were watching 

 the flocks of goats; sometimes it took a boy and sometimes 

 a goat. Two old men killed it with spears on the occasion 

 of its taking the last victim. It was a big male, very old, 

 much emaciated, and the teeth worn to stumps. Home 

 told us that a month or two before our arrival at Meru a 

 leopard had begun a career of woman-killing. It killed 

 one woman by a bite in the throat, and ate the body. It 

 sprang on and badly wounded another, but was driven off 

 in time to save her life. This was probably the leopard 

 Heller trapped and shot, in the very locality where it had 

 committed its ravages; it was an old male, but very thin, 

 with worn teeth. In these cases the reason for the beast's 

 action was plain: in each instance a big, savage male 

 had found his powers failing, and had been driven to prey 

 on the females and young of the most helpless of animals, 

 man. But another attack, of which Piggott told us, was 

 apparently due to the queer individual freakishness always 

 to be taken into account in dealing with wild beasts. A 

 Masai chief, with two or three followers, was sitting eating 

 under a bush, when, absolutely without warning, a leopard 

 sprang on him, clawed him on the head and hand, without 

 biting him, and as instantly disappeared. Piggott attended 

 to the wounded man. 



In riding in the neighborhood, through the tall dry 

 grass, which would often rattle in the wind, I was amused 



