vii MAN-EATING LIONS 77 



probably killing him instantly, while the woman's 

 body had received three bullets, though she had 

 probably died long before being hit by them, for 

 her right shoulder and breast had been terribly 

 bitten and chewed. The child's head had been 

 crushed in, evidently by one blow of the beast's 

 paw. 



III. 



While hunting in the Sultan Leanduka's 

 country, some years ago, I noticed that the natives 

 always went about together in twos and threes fully 

 armed, and on my asking the reason of this curious 

 behaviour, Leanduka told me that his people were 

 living in terror of man-eating lions, one of which 

 monsters had accounted for no less than fifteen 

 individuals during the rainy season. The beast, he 

 said, never visited the same village on successive 

 nights, but came one night here, next night there, 

 another night several miles away. 



One day, as 1 was returning after an elephant 

 hunt to my camp near this village, I was met, 

 some, miles from home, by a native who, in great 

 distress, informed me that on the afternoon of the 

 previous day a lion had killed his brother and his 

 brother's two wives, while they were on their way 

 from one village to another. On returning to camp, I 

 immediately set forth on the tracks of the beasts, but 



