8o ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER ch. 
Upper Shire River, in British Central Africa, 
another instance of a man-eating lion came to my 
notice I was sitting in my tent, when one of my 
men, whom I had paid off two days before, came 
running up in a state of great excitement, shouting 
‘ Incango a mio, incango a mio! ’ (Lion, my 
mother, lion, my mother!). On my counselling 
him to be calm and tell me what was the 
matter, he informed me that a number of lions, 
having killed his mother, wife, and two of his 
children, had taken possession of his home, and 
though I subsequently found this to be an 
exaggerated account of the disaster, the matter 
turned out to be serious enough. Picking up 
my rifle, I at once set out for his hut, which 
was about a mile distant, and on arriving there 
found several natives in a state of great perturba¬ 
tion, gathered about the door of the dwelling. 
From them I learned that my man’s wife, carrying 
her youngest child on her back, as is the custom 
with native women even when working, had been 
grinding dour for the evening meal just outside her 
hut, while her mother and other child were resting 
inside, when, all of a sudden, without a warning 
sound, a lion appeared on the scene and snatched 
the babe from her mothers back. Dropping the 
child almost immediately, the brute sprang on the 
mother, bit her through the neck, and having dragged 
