392 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
the country was exceptionally bare of grass, making game 
much more difficult of approach and capture by beasts of prey. 
The latter, unable to satisfy their wants in the ordinary way, 
were thus rendered desperate by hunger, and became pro¬ 
portionately bold and aggressive. I have observed the same 
thing in South Africa ; there, the grass is universally burned 
during the winter or dry season ; and it is invariably in the 
early spring, when all the country is devoid of cover, and before 
the new grass has begun to grow, that lions wander from their 
usual haunts in the uninhabited bush tracts, where game is 
their prey, into the neighbourhood of the border kraals, and 
make raids upon the natives’ cattle. I have myself lost cattle 
in this way—always at that particular time of year. There, 
however, the depredators seldom live to continue the habit. 
The alarm is at once raised, and all the men from the 
surrounding district muster up and hunt out the intruder, whom 
they seldom fail to make pay the penalty of his temerity. The 
scattered Ndorobos, on the other hand, whether from timidity 
or want of cohesion, make no attempt to avenge the death of 
one of themselves ; and, as a consequence, the lion, once having 
overcome his instinctive fear of man, repeats the attack when¬ 
ever hunger prompts and opportunity offers. 
Soon after my hand first became bad I had sent Juma 
with another man to follow Abdulla to Mthara, with a message 
about my mail. On their return he, too, had a lion story. He 
said that one evening when they had halted for the night on 
the banks of the Gwaso Nyiro, as his companion was cooking 
their food a lion had sprung at him, but, missing the man, had 
landed in the fire and upset the pot. Whether his majesty 
was too much disconcerted by this failure and the burning of 
his paws to follow up his intended victim, or whether the latter 
had already made good his retreat aloft, I am not clear, but at 
ail events both the messengers returned safe and sound, arriving 
back on the 22nd. They declared, though, that they had 
always slept in trees after this scare. About a week before 
