8o ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER CH. 



Upper Shire River, in British Central Africa, 

 anoiher instance of a man-eating lion came to my 

 notice I was sitting in my tent, when one of my 

 men, whom I had paid off two days before, came 

 running up in a state of great excitement, shouting 

 ' Incango a mio, incango a mio ! ' (Lion, my 

 mother, lion, my mother !). On my counselling 

 him to be calm and tell me what was the 

 matter, he informed me that a number of lions, 

 having killed his mother, wife, and two of his 

 children, had taken possession of his home, and 

 though I subsequently found this to be an 

 exaggerated account of the disaster, the matter 

 turned out to be serious enough. Picking up 

 my rifle, I at once set out for his hut, which 

 was about a mile distant, and on arriving there 

 found several natives in a state of great perturba- 

 tion, gathered about the door of the dwelling. 

 From them I learned that my man's wife, carrying 

 her youngest child on her back, as is the custom 

 with native women even when working, had been 

 grinding flour for the evening meal just outside her 

 hut, while her mother and other child were resting- 



o 



inside, when, all of a sudden, without a warning 

 sound, a lion appeared on the scene and snatched 

 the babe from her mother's back. Dropping the 

 child almost immediately, the brute sprang on the 

 mother, bit her through the neck, and having dragged 



