African Game Trails 
531 
questionably first in point of ’formidable 
capacity as a foe, the elephant equally un¬ 
questionably second, the lion third, and the 
rhino last. Drummond, who wrote a capi¬ 
tal book on South African game, who was 
for years a professional hunter like Selous, 
who had fine opportunities for observation, 
but who was a much less accurate observer 
than Selous, put the rhino as unquestion¬ 
ably the most dangerous, with the lion 
as second, and the buffalo and elephant 
nearly on a level. Samuel Baker, a good ob¬ 
server, but with less experience of African 
game than any one of the above, put the 
elephant first, the rhino second, the buf¬ 
falo seemingly third, and the lion last. 
The experts of greatest experience thus ab¬ 
solutely disagree among themselves; and 
there is the same wide divergence of view 
among good hunters and trained observers 
whose opportunities have been less. Mr. 
Abel Chapman, for instance, regards both 
the elephant and the rhino as more danger¬ 
ous than the lion; and most of the hunters 
I met in East Africa seemed inclined to 
rank the buffalo as more dangerous than 
any other animal. A man who has shot 
but a dozen or a score of these various ani¬ 
mals, all put together, is not entitled to ex¬ 
press any but the most tentative opinion as 
to their relative prowess and ferocity; yet 
on the whole it seems to me that the weight 
of opinion among those best fitted to judge 
is that the lion is the most formidable op¬ 
ponent of the hunter, under ordinary con¬ 
ditions. But we must ever keep in mind 
the fact that the surrounding conditions, 
the geographical locality, and the wide indi¬ 
vidual variation of temper within the ranks 
of each species, must ‘all be taken into 
account. Under certain circumstances, a 
lion may be easily killed, whereas a rhino 
would be a dangerous foe. Under other con¬ 
ditions the rhino could be attacked with im¬ 
punity, and the lion only with the utmost 
hazard; and one bull buffalo might flee 
and one bull elephant charge, and yet the 
next couple met with might show an exact 
reversal of behavior. 
At any rate, during the last three or four 
years, in German and British East Africa 
and Uganda, over fifty white men have been 
killed or mauled and hurt by lions, buffa¬ 
loes, elephants, and rhinos; and the lions 
have the largest list of victims to their 
credit. In Nairobi churchyard I was shown 
the graves of seven men who had been killed 
by lions, and of one who had been killed by 
a rhino. The first man to meet us on the 
African shore was Mr. Campbell, Governor 
Jackson’s A.D.C., and only a year previ¬ 
ously he had been badly mauled by a lion. 
We met one gentleman who had been crip¬ 
pled for life by a lioness. He had marked 
her into some patches of brush, and coming 
up, tried to put her out of one thick clump. 
Failing, he thought she might have gone 
into another thicket, and walked toward it; 
instantly that his back was turned, the lion¬ 
ess, who had really been in the first clump 
of brush, raced out after him, threw him 
down, and bit him again and again before 
she was driven off. One night we camped at 
the very spot where, a score of years before, 
a strange tragedy had happened. It was in 
the early days of the opening of the coun¬ 
try, and an expedition was going toward 
Uganda; one of the officials in charge was 
sleeping in a tent with the flap open. There 
was an askari on duty; yet a lion crept up, 
entered the tent, and seized and dragged 
forth the man. He struggled and made 
outcry; there was a rush of people, and 
the lion dropped his prey and bounded off. 
The man’s wounds were dressed, and he 
was put back to bed in his own tent; but 
an hour or two after the camp again grew 
still, the lion returned, bent on the victim of 
whom he had been robbed; he re-entered 
the tent, seized the unfortunate wounded 
man with his great fangs, and this time 
made off with him into the surrounding 
darkness, killed and ate him. Not far from 
the scene of this tragedy, another had oc¬ 
curred. An English officer named Stewart, 
while endeavoring to kill his first lion, was 
himself set on and slain. At yet another 
place we were shown where two settlers, 
Messrs. Lucas and Goldfinch, had been 
one killed and one crippled by a lion they 
had been hunting. They had been follow¬ 
ing the chase on horseback, and being men 
of bold nature, and having killed several 
lions, had become too daring. They hunted 
the lion into a small piece of brush and 
rode too near it. It came out at a run and 
was on them before their horses could get 
under way. Goldfinch was knocked over and 
badly bitten and clawed; Lucas went to his 
assistance, and was in his turn knocked 
over, and the lion then lay on him and bit 
him to death. Goldfinch, in spite of his 
