270 THE LAND OF THE LION 



his rifle and shoot it dead, for the beast did not seem in 

 the least scared and waited for him. I think this was 

 the same leopard that had thoroughly frightened the little 

 native bazaar a few days before. He had broken two 

 windows, one the postmaster's, and the other the district 

 commissioner's. In both cases if he had not been fired 

 at he would no doubt have come in. Had Mr. S. not 

 shot him there would soon have been a man-eating leopard 

 at Laikipia. 



Man-eating leopards are not unknown hereabouts; one 

 of the best and bravest of the Church Missionary Society's 

 men, Mr. McGregor, was so mauled by one of them, some 

 years ago, that for a long time he hung between life and 

 death. 



This beast had carried off several children from one of 

 the Kikuyu villages which it was in the habit of visiting. 

 Emboldened by success it next broke into a hut and seized 

 a woman. Mr. McG. happened to be there, and hearing 

 her cries, rushed out into the darkness after the beast. He 

 is a good shot, and carries a 45-90 Winchester. He came 

 upon the leopard round the corner of a hut, and managed 

 by a flambeau's light, to shoot it through the body; but 

 it sprang on him and tore a large part of his scalp away, 

 and so clawed and mauled his shoulder and left arm that 

 they are to-day almost useless to him. He told me that 

 he lay unattended (missionaries were few and far between 

 then) in that village, for almost six months. 



Lions in this neighbourhood have a bad reputation 

 and are not like those on the Nzoia, which are treated, by 

 the almost unarmed N'dorobo of that plateau, with con- 

 tempt. The N'dorobo are very numerous on the Nzoia, 

 yet they seem scarcely ever to come to an encounter with 

 the packs of lions that hunt over the country. They sleep 

 in twos and threes under any convenient rock or thorn 

 tree, light their tiny fires, hang up their meat on the brush 



