THE LION IN SOUTH AFRICA 321 



animals, they approach the native villages and prey on the 

 goats and dogs, and if they are not destroyed soon take to 

 killing women and children. In countries where both game 

 and lions abound, I presume that the old and weakly lions can 

 always get a living, like the hysenas, on the remains of the 

 carcases of animals killed by younger and more vigorous 

 animals. As man is not the lion's usual food, most lions 

 would probably give way before a human being even on a dark 

 night and allow him to pass unmolested, provided they were 

 not hungry ; but were a man to come within the ken of a 

 hungry lion under such circumstances I should look upon him 

 as a dead man whether he were armed or not, for the lion 

 would probably spring upon him suddenly from behind and 

 give him no time to make use of his weapon. Therefore I 

 look upon it as foolhardy in the extreme to walk along a road 

 or a native footpath, on a dark night, in countries which are 

 infested by lions, if you can avoid doing so. You may walk 

 twenty times at night before meeting a lion at all ; and you 

 may meet twenty lions before encountering a really hungry 

 animal ; but when you do at last meet him, he will, most 

 assuredly, be the last lion that you will have any knowledge of 

 in this world. 



There is an old fable, still believed in more or less, that the 

 lion is a very clean feeder, and that he will eat nothing but the 

 flesh of an animal that he has killed himself. That has not 

 been my experience. On the contrary, I have found that, even 

 where game abounds, lions will seldom pass the carcase of an 

 animal killed by a hunter, but will almost invariably feed on 

 it, even though the flesh be quite putrid. Sometimes when 

 several elephants have been shot, lions will feast on the stink- 

 ing carcases as long as there is any soft meat left, and I have 

 known this to happen in a country where game of various kinds 

 was plentiful, especially zebras, which are always a favourite 

 food of lions. However, although the lion is not a clean feeder 

 in the sense that he will only eat fresh meat, he is wonderfully 

 dexterous in disembowelling a carcase, without messing the 



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