5 8 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



" I don't know," answered the man ; "something 

 hit me on the head." 



At this moment Jantje saw by the light of the 

 fire blood running down his neck, and called out, 

 " Wake, wake, it was the lion I heard ! Wake, 

 wake, and see if every one is here ! " 



It soon appeared that one of the Kafirs was 

 missing, and this is no doubt what had happened. 

 The lion must have crept or sprung in amongst the 

 sleepers, and seizing one of them by the head, must 

 have killed him instantly and carried him off. But 

 in doing so it must have struck the man lying next 

 him on the head with one of its paws, and inflicted 

 a slight scalp wound with one of its claws. The 

 body of the man who had been carried off was not 

 recovered, because, as Henry Wall and Jantje told 

 me, the rest of the Kafirs would give them no 

 assistance in following up the lion the next day. 



This dangerous man-eater was at last mortally 

 wounded by the spears of two young men whom it 

 attacked in broad daylight close to a small native 

 village. One of these youths died the same 

 evening from the mauling he received in the en- 

 counter, but he had driven his spear into the lion's 

 chest when it attacked him, and his companion had 

 also struck it in the side with a light throwing 

 spear. The next day, all the men from the two or 

 three little villages in the neighbourhood turned out 

 and followed up the bloody tracks of the wounded 

 lion. They had not far to go, for the grim beast 

 lay dead, with the two spears still sticking in it, 

 within a short distance from the spot where it had 

 attacked the two young men the previous day. As 

 is the custom when man-eating lions are killed in 

 the interior of Africa, a great quantity of dry wood 

 was then collected, and a huge fire lighted, on 

 which the carcase was thrown and utterly consumed. 



There is one rather curious fact in con- 



