18 
African Game Trails 
recorded history man has been not merely 
the chief, but practically the sole factor in 
the extermination of big mammals and 
birds. 
At and near Meru Boma we spent a fort¬ 
night hunting elephant and rhinoceros, as 
described in the preceding chapter. While 
camped by the boma white-necked vulturine 
ravens and black and white crows came 
familiarly around the tents. A young eland 
bull, quite as tame as a domestic cow, was 
picketed, now here, now there, about us. 
Horne was breaking it to drive in a cart. 
During our stay another District Com¬ 
missioner, Mr. Piggott, came over on a 
short visit; it was he who the preceding 
year, while at Neri, had been obliged to 
undertake the crusade against the rhinos, 
because, quite unprovoked, they had killed 
various natives. He told us that at the 
same time a man-eating leopard made its 
appearance, and killed seven children. It 
did not attack at night but in the daytime, 
its victims being the little boys, who were 
watching the flocks of goats; sometimes it 
took a boy and sometimes a goat.. Two old 
men killed it with spears on the occasion 
of its taking the last victim. It was a big 
male, very old, much emaciated, and the 
teeth worn to stumps. Horne told us that 
a month or two before our arrival at Meru 
a leopard had begun a career of woman¬ 
killing. It killed one woman by a bite in 
the throat, and ate the body. It sprang 
on and badly wounded another, but was 
driven off in time to save her life. This 
was probably the leopard Heller trapped 
and shot, in the very locality where it had 
committed its ravages; it was an old male, 
but very thin, with worn teeth. In these 
cases the reason for the beast’s action was 
plain; in each instance a big, savage male 
had found his powers failing, and had been 
driven to prey on the females and young 
of the most helpless of animals, man. But 
another attack, of which Piggott told us, 
was apparently due to the queer individual 
freakishness always to be taken into ac¬ 
count in dealing with wild beasts. A 
Masai chief, with two or three followers, 
was sitting eating under a bush, when, ab¬ 
solutely without warning, a leopard sprang 
on him, clawed him on the head and hand, 
without biting him, and as instantly dis¬ 
appeared. Piggott attended to the wound¬ 
ed man. 
In riding in the neighborhood, through 
the tall dry grass, which would often rattle 
in the wind, I was amused to find that if I 
suddenly heard the sound I was apt to 
stand alertly on guard, quite unconsciously 
and instinctively, because it suggested the 
presence of a rattlesnake. During the 
years I lived on a ranch in the West I was 
always hearing and killing rattlesnakes, 
and although I knew well that no African 
snake carries a rattle, my subconscious 
senses always threw me to attention if there 
was a sound resembling that made by a 
rattler. Tarlton, by the way, told me an 
interesting anecdote of a white-tailed mon¬ 
goose and a snake. One day they brought 
in a rather small puff adder, less than two 
feet long, put it on the floor, and showed 
it to the mongoose. Instantly the latter 
sprang toward the snake, every hair in its 
body and tail on end, and halted five feet 
away, while the snake lay in curves like the 
thong of a whip, its head turned toward 
the mongoose. Both were motionless for a 
moment. Then, suddenly, the mongoose 
seemed to lose all its excitement; its hair 
smoothed down, and it trotted quietly up 
to the snake, seized it by the middle of the 
back—it always devoured its food with sav¬ 
age voracity—and settled comfortably down 
to its meal. Like lightning the snake’s 
head whipped round. It drove its fangs 
deep into the snout or lip of the mongoose, 
hung on for a moment, and then repeated 
the blow. The mongoose paid not the 
least attention, but went on munching the 
snake’s body, severed its backbone at once, 
and then ate it all up, head, fangs, poison, 
and everything; and it never showed a sign 
of having received any damage in the en¬ 
counter. I had always understood that the 
mongoose owed its safety to its agility in 
avoiding the snake’s stroke, and I can offer 
no explanation of this particular incident. 
There were eland on the high downs not 
far from Meru, apparently as much at 
home in the wet, cold climate as on the hot 
plains. Their favorite gait is the trot. An 
elephant moves at a walk or rather rack; 
a giraffe has a very peculiar leisurely look¬ 
ing gallop, both hind legs coming forward 
at the same time, outside the forelegs; 
rhino and buffalo trot and run. Eland 
when alarmed bound with astonishing agil¬ 
ity for such large beasts—a trait not shown 
by other large antelope, like oryx—and 
