302 HYJENA. 
was full of them from the time it turned dark till 
the dawn of day, seeking the different pieces of 
slaughtered carcases which this cruel and unclean 
people expose in the streets without burial, and 
who firmly believe that these animals are Falasha 
from the neio-hbourino; mountains, transformed 
by Hiagic, and come down to eat human flesh in 
the dark in safety. Many a time in the night, when 
the king had kept me late in the palace, and it 
was not my duty to lie there, in going across the 
square from the king's house, not many hundred 
yards distant, I have been apprehensive they 
would bite me in the leg. They grunted in great 
numbers about me, though I was surrounded with 
several armed men, who seldom passed a night 
Av^ithout wounding or slaughtering some of them. 
One night in Maitsha, being very intent on 
observation, I heard something pass behind me 
towards the bed, but upon looking round could 
perceive nothing. Having finished what I was 
then about, I went out of my tent, resolving di- 
rectly to return, which I immediately did, when I 
perceived large blue eyes glaring at me in the 
dark. I called upon my servant with a light, and 
there was the Hyaena standing nigh the head of 
the bed, with two or three large bunches of can- 
dles in his mouth. To have fired at him I was in 
danger of breaking my quadrant or other furni- 
ture, and he seemed, by keeping the candles 
steadily in his mouth, to wish for no other prey 
at that time. As his mouth was full, and he had 
no claws to tear with, I was not afraid of him, 
but with a pike struck him as near the heart as I 
