168 THE LION 



exaggerated view to which their fears, and the 

 great loss of hfe they have sustained, may have 

 given rise, the lact remains that more people have 

 been taken of late years in Boror and the neigh- 

 bouring Prazo of Lugella than in any part of Africa 

 with which I have ever been acquainted. 



The lion of this part of Africa is a fuU-maned 

 beast, varying in the colour of that striking 

 feature and his skin from dark brown-shaded 

 grey, with the so-called black mane, to a body 

 colour of tawny senna with a mane of pronounced 

 yellowish tinge. I have never seen a maneless 

 lion in these regions, or one of mature growth 

 which did not display at least some symptom 

 of their usual characteristic adornment. It has 

 been said that the greatest fullness of this 

 hirsute appendage displays itself in open rather 

 than in thick bush country, and that in the 

 latter, due to the losses sustained in traversing 

 the thorny undergrowth, the manes of these 

 animals are always poor. Nothing, however, 

 could coincide less with the results of my own 

 observations. There are few portions of Zam- 

 bezia characterised by wide plains such as those 

 of which such immense areas of South Africa 

 consist ; almost the whole of the face of the 

 country is covered by forest usually thick, 

 thorny, and dense. But of the lions shot by me 

 in this part of Africa, and of the skins obtained 

 there which I have examined, I do not remember 

 one which was not normally maned, whilst the 

 growth of several has been distinctly above the 

 average. 



