EXPERIENCES IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA. 
719 
one misses an enraged Lion in East Africa, the probability 
is that it does matter very much, however I did not miss her, 
and so am alive to tell the tale ; every one knows all about 
Lions so it would be absurd lor me this evening to say much 
about them ; they are still plentiful in many places, and long 
may they remain so, as though every settler’s hand is against 
them, and on account of their killing farm stock, it is often 
necessary to poison them, yet I hope the day is very far 
distant when Felts Leo will have been killed out in East 
Africa. 
lo me one of the chief attractions ol the country was the 
extraordinary interest of seeing these great wild animals. 
Lions, Giraffes, Rhinoceroses and Hippopotamuses, in their 
natural ground, like living relics of a former age; animals, 
which one has read about from childhood and perhaps 
looked on almost as tables or at all events only to be seen in 
Zoological Gardens ; in this wonderful country are daily to 
be seen in the same natural surroundings which they have 
inhabited for ages. 
Lions follow the game, and we were always sure on seeing 
great quantities of Hartebeestes or Zebras that news would 
very shortly be brought of Lions having been either seen or 
heard near, as they prefer a young Zebra or a succulent 
“ Tommy ” to anything else, and the so-called “ man-eating 
Lion” is happily of rare occurrence, though I was told if once 
they had tasted human flesh they will not touch anything 
else. The natives have a story of some large man-eating Tiger 
which lives in the big forests, but this, no doubt, is a myth, 
any such animal if it existed would have been discovered long 
ago ; many people say the Leopard is more to be dreaded than 
the Lion, the only Leopard I saw did not appear to be very 
terrifying ; we had stopped one morning for a short rest in the 
middle of the march, and I at once strolled off with my small 
collecting-gun for birds, leaving my rifle and gunbearer lying 
under a tree, 1 had not gone twenty yeards into the bush 
before a magnificent Leopard glided oft the rotten bough of 
a dead tree, not ten feet in front of me, and slowly trotted oft 
into thick cover ; I had evidently disturbed him in his midday 
