The Lion 113 



while the outer ring-fence, of interwoven thorns, supported 

 by strong posts, which guards all native villages, and is 

 often of great height, offered no obstacle to his powers of 

 jumping, a single bound being always sufficient to land him 

 inside. 



" He usually confined himself to killing a single indi- 

 vidual, and would claw one out from under the blanket or 

 skin under which, with covered heads, they cowered in 

 terror on his arrival ; but on the two or three occasions in 

 which he had met with opposition, and when he had been 

 wounded with assagais, he had killed every soul in the hut, 

 and so dreadfully mangled them that their bodies almost 

 defied recognition. 



" I was staying at the villages for some weeks, first at 

 one and then at another, as they suited the position of the 

 game, or where I happened to find myself at night ; but 

 though I heard of the lion having attacked one either just 

 before or just after I had been there, I never happened to 

 meet it, and the ignorant natives became anxious for my 

 presence, saying that their enemy feared to go where I 

 was. 



" This, however, was not destined to last. One sultry 

 evening I arrived at the outermost village, having been 

 forced to leave the spoor of a herd of elephants for want 

 of ammunition, and being very tired, I determined to sleep 

 at it, sending on two of my men to fetch some from the 

 place which I made my headquarters. Tired as I was with 

 my exertions on an unusually hot day, I soon fell asleep in 

 the hut that had been given up to our use ; but, as the heat 

 was stifling, I was not at all surprised at being awakened 



