THE LION IN SOUTH AFRICA 327 



at night whilst inside a kraal, they will often spring over the 

 fence in their hurry to get out. 



The wild lion of Southern Africa seldom presents the 

 majestic appearance of the picture-book animal, because as a 

 rule he does not carry a long shaggy mane, like the lions one 

 often sees in menageries. Occasionally, however, one sees a 

 wild lion with a fine full dark mane, and then he is a magni- 

 ficent animal, and one of the noblest prizes that can fall to the 

 sportsman's rifle. I have been much struck by the beauty of 

 the manes of many of the lions shot by Colonel Arthur Paget, 

 Lord Wolverton, Lord Delamere and other sportsmen in 

 Somaliland, and I think there can be no doubt that in that part 

 of Africa the lions grow better manes on an average than in 

 South Africa. The dark parts are, too, of a deeper black. 

 But I have not yet seen a lion's skin from Somaliland with so 

 full a mane as in the three best skins I have seen from South 

 Africa. None of these three splendid animals were, alas ! 

 shot by myself. One was killed by the natives in Matabele- 

 land and its skin given me by Lo Rengula, and I still have 

 it in my possession ; the second was killed at the Umfuli 

 river in Mashonaland by my friend Corneiis van Rooyen, 

 and the third two years ago within a few miles of the same 

 spot by Hans Lee, the young Boer hunter who accompanied 

 Lord Randolph Churchill on his recent expedition to South 

 Africa. 



Although I have seen a very large number of skins of wild 

 lions, I have never yet seen one with long hair growing on the 

 belly as is so common in menagerie lions and invariable in the 

 picture-book animal. A wild lion with a very fine mane will 

 have a tuft of long hair in the arm-pit, another on the elbow, 

 and in some cases a tuft in the flank, but the hair of the belly 

 is always short and close, as on the rest of the body. In the 

 great majority of cases the mane of the wild lion is simply a 

 ruff round the neck with an extension down the back between 

 the shoulders. In very rare and exceptional cases the angle 

 formed between the end of this extension and the point of the 



