HYiENA, 
§57 
tains, transformed by magic, and come down to 
eat human flesh in the dark with 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, pot many hundred yards distant, I have 
been apprehensive lest they should bite me in the 
leg. They grunted in great numbers about me, 
although I was surrounded with several armed 
men, who seldom passed a night without wound- 
ing or slaughtering some of them. 
One night in Maitsha, being very intent on an 
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 
directly to return, which I immediately did ; 
when I perceived two large blue eyes glaring at 
me in the dark. I called up my servant with a 
light ; and we found a hyaena standing near the 
head of the bed, with two or three large bunches 
of candles in his mouth. To have fired at him^ 
would have been at the risk of breaking my qua- 
drant, or other furniture ; and he seemed, by keep- 
ing 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 ; and, with a pike, stuck him as near 
the heart as I could. It was not till then that he 
shewed any sign of fierceness ; but, upon feeling 
his wound, he let drop the candles, and endea- 
voured to run up the shaft of the spear to arrive 
at me, so that I was obliged to draw my pistol 
from my girdle, and K shoot him ; and nearly at 
the same time, my servant cleft his skull with a 
battle-axe. In a word, the hysena was the plague 
of our lives, the terror of our night walks, and 
VOL. I, ~ l 1 
