392 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap. 



the country was exceptionally bare of grass, making game 

 much more difficult of approach and capture by beasts of prey. 

 The latter, unable to satisfy their wants in the ordinary way, 

 were thus rendered desperate by hunger, and became pro- 

 portionately bold and aggressive. I have observed the same 

 thing in South Africa ; there, the grass is universally burned 

 during the winter or dry season ; and it is invariably in the 

 early spring, when all the country is devoid of cover, and before 

 the new grass has begun to grow, that lions wander from their 

 usual haunts in the uninhabited bush tracts, where game is 

 their prey, into the neighbourhood of the border kraals, and 

 make raids upon the natives' cattle. I have myself lost cattle 

 in this way — always at that particular time of year. There, 

 however, the depredators seldom live to continue the habit. 

 The alarm is at once raised, and all the men from the 

 surrounding district muster up and hunt out the intruder, whom 

 they seldom fail to make pay the penalty of his temerity. The 

 scattered Ndorobos, on the other hand, whether from timidity 

 or want of cohesion, make no attempt to avenge the death of 

 one of themselves ; and, as a consequence, the lion, once having 

 overcome his instinctive fear of man, repeats the attack when- 

 ever hunger prompts and opportunity offers. 



Soon after my hand first became bad I had sent Juma 

 with another man to follow Abdulla to Mthara, with a message 

 about my mail. On their return he, too, had a lion story. He 

 said that one evening when they had halted for the night on 

 the banks of the Gwaso Nyiro, as his companion was cooking 

 their food a lion had sprung at him, but, missing the man, had 

 landed in the fire and upset the pot. Whether his majesty 

 was too much disconcerted by this failure and the burning of 

 his paws to follow up his intended victim, or whether the latter 

 had already made good his retreat aloft, I am not clear, but at 

 all events both the messengers returned safe and sound, arriving 

 back on the 22nd. They declared, though, that they had 

 always slept in trees after this scare. About a week before 



