ioo Wild Life in Central Africa. 



had entered the orifice of his ear. I did not hear of the 

 occurrence until two days afterwards, although the man 

 was living within half a mile of my camp, and he knew he 

 could have got medicine by asking for it. However, the 

 natives seem to dislike appealing to white men when they 

 are hurt or ill. On hearing of the affair, I took a basin and 

 some medicine and went off to his hut, and he then 

 seemed quite pleased to be treated. In less than two 

 months he was quite sound, and if he had only come at 

 once he would have got better in two weeks. Strange to 

 relate, this man had had both his ears cut off for some 

 crime, before the whites came to this country, about twenty 

 years ago. 



Natives are very touchy about any blemish of this kind, 

 and it is considered to be bad form to make any remarks 

 on such injuries. An old man who lives near my house 

 was mauled several years ago by a leopard, and his wounds 

 took over a year to heal up. Another accident occurred to 

 an old woman, who had most of the calf of one of her legs 

 torn off by an hyaena on a dark night. A wound of this 

 kind must be dreadfully painful, as it is a tear and not a 

 clean bite. 



At another village, about three miles away, a lion took a 

 woman last year (1912) and ate most of her. It then left 

 the skull right on the top of a grave, which had a small 

 mound over it. The superstitious minds of the natives were 

 greatly disturbed over this weird action on the lion's part, 

 and they firmly believe the lion was a human being 

 who had died, and had come to life again in the guise 

 of a lion. This idea was strengthened by the fact that 

 a European who hunted up the lion fired several shots 

 at it and failed to kill it. My informant, in telling me 

 of the affair, remarked : " How could he kill a man who is 

 bewitched ? " 



In this chapter I have not mentioned anything about the 

 natives being killed or injured by dangerous animals, and 

 yet the list would be much longer than that of the whites 

 who have suffered. 



