6 The Carnivora. 
attacking his prey: “It is questionable if a single beast ever 
engages a full-grown buffalo. Messrs. Oswald and Verdon once 
saw three lions combine to pull a buffalo down, and they could 
not accomplish it without a struggle, though he was mortally 
wounded by a 2oz. ball.” The fact that the natives frequently 
kill the lion with their spears would suggest that he is not 
nearly so formidable an antagonist as the tiger. I have seen 
a very large skin in which there were the marks of only two 
spear wounds, one over the shoulder, and the other through the 
ribs. The Bushmen are adepts at stalking the lion. When he 
has been dining sumptuously they hunt stealthily on his trail 
until they find him sleeping off the effects of his gorge. A 
poisoned arrow is then discharged from a distance of a few feet, 
while one of the hunters throws his cloak over the animal’s : 
head, and a number of spears are hurled at him during the 
moment of his surprise and confusion. No tiger, it may be 
averred, would allow himself to be killed in this primitive 
fashion by two or three savages armed with such weapons. 
The point of the lion’s attack seems to be the flank or throat, 
according to Livingstone’s observations, and he does not make 
use of his weight by springing on the withers or quarters, as we 
almost always see him represented in pictures. It is difficult 
to bring oneself to believe the stories told of his immense 
strength. Writers who assure us that he will.“ fell an ox or an 
antelope with a single blow of his paw, break its neck with one 
crunch of his cruel teeth, and bound off with it to his lair as 
easily as if he were only carrying a rabbit,” must surely be in 
aromancing mood; and when we are further informed that a 
lion has been known to leap a wall 9ft. high with a calf in his 
mouth, we wonder how he managed to dispose of its dangling 
legs ! 
Livingstone’s account of the mauling he underwent from a 
wounded lion shows that the beast may on occasion become a 
dangerous enemy. That simple-minded missionary and great 
explorer seems to have done his lion shooting with weapons 
whose proper place should have been in the hands of ploughboys 
