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 f 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 Bengula, and I still have 
it in my possession ; the second was killed at the Umfuli 
river in Mashonaland by my friend Cornelis 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 
_____ 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 
