58 
LION-HUNTING 
[CII. Ill 
and crushed the life out of it, although his arm was 
badly bitten. A leopard will charge at least as readily 
as one of the big beasts, and is rather more apt to get 
his charge home, but the risk is less to life than to limb. 
There are other animals often or occasionally danger¬ 
ous to human life which are, nevertheless, not dangerous 
to the hunter. Crocodiles are far greater pests, and far 
more often man-eaters, than lions or leopards; but their 
shooting is not accompanied by the smallest element of 
risk. Poisonous snakes are fruitful sources of accident, 
but they are actuated only by fear and the anger born 
of fear. The hippopotamus sometimes destroys boats 
and kills those in them; but again there is no risk in 
hunting him. Finally, the hyena, too cowardly ever to 
be a source of danger to the hunter, is sometimes a 
dreadful curse to the weak and helpless. The hyena is 
a beast of unusual strength and of enormous power in 
his jaws and teeth, and thrice over would he be dreaded 
were fang and sinew driven by a heart of the leopard’s 
cruel courage. But though the creature’s foul and evil 
ferocity has no such backing as that yielded by the 
angry daring of the spotted cat, it is yet fraught with a 
terror all its own; for on occasion the hyena takes to 
man-eating after its own fashion. Carrion-feeder though 
it is, in certain places it will enter native huts and carry 
away children or even sleeping adults ; and where famine 
or disease has worked havoc among a people, the hideous 
spotted beasts become bolder and prey on the survivors. 
For some years past Uganda has been scourged by the 
sleeping-sickness, which has ravaged it as in the Middle 
Ages the Black Death ravaged Europe. Hundreds 
of thousands of natives have died. Every effort has 
been made by the Government officials to cope with 
the disease; and among other things sleeping-sickness 
