XVI 
THE LION 
209 
A valuable instance is furnished by Dr. Ansorge. 
In one of his journeys a lion had seized a sleeping 
porter by the thigh and was making off with him. 
The watch raised an alarm ; the camp awoke and the 
men seized burning brands and rushed into the busli. 
The lion dropped the porter and made off. The injured 
man told a remarkable story :— 
“ Though the lion had seized him and was carrying 
him off, he was still asleep : our shouts woke him up 
and to his horror he found that he himself was being 
carried off by the lion, and then he clasped his arms 
around the lion’s neck and screamed.” 
In this instance the porter owed his escape to the 
fact that the lion ran against a strong projecting 
branch of a tree, which severely scraped the skin and 
hair from the animal’s body. 
An incident which happened in the Rovuma valley 
described by Weule supports this contention :— 
“A native woman was sitting near the door of a hut 
with her husband and child when an impudent lion 
sprang on her in broad daylight and dragged her away. 
The poor woman could be heard shrieking ‘ Nna kufa ! 
Nna kufa ! ’ (I die, I die) as the brute dragged her 
through the wood and the voice grew fainter and 
fainter, but none could help.” 
There is a story current in British East Africa to 
the effect that a lion seized a white hunter by the 
shoulder, but whilst being dragged away, the hunter 
had the presence of mind to draw the knife from his 
belt, fatally stab the lion, and save his own life. Mr. 
F. C. Selous informed me that this desperate adventure 
is well authenticated. 
The settler dislikes the lion, and with good reason, 
for it preys on the cattle and sheep, and destroys the 
ostriches. Moreover, they cause the zebra to stampede, 
and break the barbed wire around the farm. 
When zebras abound in a district, in order to prevent 
them eating the young crops, the farmer surrounds 
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