FEROCITY OF LIONS. 
151 
unusual occurrence. He vowed vengeance for the 
future, and some days afterwards he and his brother 
John saw three, and they immediately gave chase on 
foot. Franz overtook and cut off the last, and stood 
in the path ready to receive her, and as she came on 
covered her steadily and pulled, when his weapon, a 
flint, missed fire ; the gun missed fire a second time, 
when the lioness sprang on him, clawing and biting 
him frightfully, crippling and disabling him for life. 
She was grinding away at his thigh when John got 
up and pluckily shot her dead on his body. I have 
heard him tell the story in the coolest manner 
possible, saying he must have shot her through and 
through if the old gun had not missed, and regretting 
he had not had a doppi-roer (percussion gun). Another 
similar instance happened to a Boer at Scoon Spruit, 
not far distant. The lions frightened the oxen 
treking in a wagon one very dark night. The Boer 
jumped off to try and stop them, but the pace being 
too fast he jumped up on the trap behind while the 
oxen were going at full gallop. The lion sprang on 
him, pulled him off, killed and ate him on the road, 
and his brother, on searching for him in the morning, 
found the lion still there. He coolly dismounted, and 
shot him dead on the remains of his brother’s body. 
27 th .— Had a shocking bad cold and headache, 
a kind of influenza, the last ten days, and have con¬ 
sequently not been doing much. Found the horses 
two days after losing them, on the road back. Killed 
yesterday, after a great amount of toil, a bird strange 
