THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
very bold, though in a sense they are always cowardly. In former times 
amongst the Zulus and the Matabele, when men and women were 
continually being killed for witchcraft, and their bodies left lying just 
outside their villages, these were invariably eaten by hyenas. Indeed, 
when Lo Bengula, the last King of the Matabele, passed sentence of death 
on any of his subjects, all he said was “ Niga impisi ” (“ Give him [or her] 
to the hyenas ”). Amongst the Wa-kikuyu of British East Africa to-day the 
dead are not buried, but left exposed in the bush near the villages, and are 
always eaten by hyenas. Under such conditions, hyenas lose their fear 
of man to a considerable extent, and if hungry will attack sleeping people, 
even entering huts for this purpose if the doors are left open or insecurely 
fastened. In such cases they usually attack the head, tearing the flesh from 
the skull and face. I have seen many natives who have been thus disfigured, 
but have recovered from their wounds. Two cases of Europeans having 
been attacked at night when asleep by spotted hyenas have also come 
within my knowledge. 
When living in countries where there is a large native population 
and little or no game, spotted hyenas, if they cannot find or dig up a 
sufficiency of dead bodies to satisfy their hunger, kill large numbers 
of sheep, goats, and calves, which they carry off at night from the 
pens in which they are enclosed. They will sometimes, too, kill full- 
grown native cows. In doing this, they attack between the hind legs, 
first tearing away the udder and then dragging out the intestines. I once 
had a fine large stallion donkey killed much in the same way by a single 
hyena. It was first seized by the testicles, which were bitten off, and the 
stomach then torn open and the entrails dragged out. This was all done 
in an extraordinarily short space of time, as we heard the donkey’s cry of 
distress when first attacked close behind our camp, and ran at once to its 
assistance. It was still alive when we reached it, though it had been already 
almost completely disembowelled. In uninhabited country, no doubt, 
spotted hyenas sometimes kill game, especially young animals; but they 
probably subsist principally on the remains of the antelopes, zebras and 
buffaloes killed by lions. In addition to whatever meat they may obtain 
in this way, the hyenas often eat the marrow bones, which they break 
up and swallow in large pieces, after first abstracting the marrow. Spotted 
hyenas are very noisy animals, and their ordinary howl, beginning on a 
low note, and rising in cadence to a scream, is one of the weirdest as well 
as one of the commonest sounds to break the stillness of an African night. 
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