March 20, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
449 
taking the dog with them, while I turned in. 
Next morning the boys found the leopard dead, 
about fifty yards from the house, and it was a 
wonder how she got so far, as she received 
the whole charge in her shoulder. It was a 
female with a lovely skin, but it was a little 
spoilt by the shot. A leopard’s favorite prey 
is a dog, and he will follow one for miles, and 
therefore it behooves a man who is fond of his 
dogs to be extremely careful, as leopards will 
go to any length, and are exceedingly bold when 
there is a chance of carrying one away. The 
dog of course stands no show, as he is taken 
unawares. 
I was obliged to return to Kalomo, but im¬ 
pressed on the boys the necessity of keeping a 
very smart lookout after the cattle. “Man pro¬ 
poses,’’ etc., but two days afterward one of the 
herders came in and reported that lions had gor 
in among the herd the night before and had 
killed three heifers. That day I thought to my¬ 
self, “What is the good of rustling and trying, 
when everything goes against one?’’ Just my 
luck, in spite of there being other cattle belong¬ 
ing to different owners in the bunch, all killed 
were my property, while the boys, in their wish 
to help me, had skinned out the meat and had 
brought it to the Police Camp, where I could 
.sell it for food for the men, but there was no 
chance of setting a trap, sitting up or even 
poisoning, as they had carried in all the meat. 
Poisoning is a method I very seldom use. Its 
effects are too damaging and far-reaching. I 
own to putting poison in the carcass of a sheep 
for marabout storks. The results were awful, 
but needs must when the devil drives and you 
cannot have game and cattle. If you wish the 
latter, it is necessary to harden your heart and 
kill off the former. To show what things were 
like in Barotseland at this time, there was an 
American farmer, a rustler, living about nine 
miles from me. He was trying up-to-date 
methods on his farm, and had quite a lot of 
money invested. He found a lion’s den right 
on his place, and poisoned and killed no less 
than nine full-grown lions in ten days. This, 
as far as I know is a record, but how could he 
have expected to keep a living thing around 
him with that little bunch on the lookout for 
food. Game carry poisonous ticks of every de¬ 
scription and are the starters of nearly all 
diseases which are common and virulent in 
Africa. I do not make this statement in an 
absolutely literal sense, but to a very great 
extent it is true. 
How I was to get rid of these lions around 
the farm bothered me, but it had to be done. 
I thought of a big drive, but the country was 
altogether too large. To find a kill is fairly 
easy, as the vultures will show you exactly 
where there is any meat about, and so I told 
the boy to look out for one and report. On the 
third day, he said he had found where lions had 
killed a hartebeeste the night before, and that 
on his way in he had seen a lioness with two 
young cubs. 
Leaving my dogs behind, I went out with 
him, carrying a bottle of strychnine. In poison¬ 
ing, one must be careful not to put too much 
down, if so, and animals get too large a dose, 
it is liable to make them sick and not have the 
desired effect, and when looking for the results 
of your poisoning, always go to the nearest 
water, as an animal that has got a dose always 
makes for water, if there is any around. 
I stayed at the farm that night, and as soon 
as it was light, started out next morning to see 
the results. They were ghastly. A quantity of 
birds lay around, and the kill had quite disap¬ 
peared, with the exception of a few bones, and 
I realized that the result must have been dis¬ 
astrous. There had been a lion and several 
hyenas at the kill, and so I hoped for the best 
and sent out three boys, with orders that if they 
found a dead lion, to skin it and bring in the 
skin and skull, although a poisoned lion’s skin 
is not of much use, as the hair is very liable to 
come out. 
They started out in different directions, and I 
took anxether. The results of the poisoning 
were to a certain extent satisfactory. They 
ROAN ANTELOPE. 
found a lioness dead, who had cubs suckling 
her. I told the natives to look for the cubs, 
and to capture them if possible. Undoubtedly 
other lions also got a dose of poison here, but 
as the ground was hard and dry, we could not 
find traces of any more. They found the cubs 
two days afterward and brought them in, and 
I raised them with a soda water bottle, tying 
a piece of rag over the spout, so that the milk 
could not come too fast, and they were forced 
to suck. They soon became quite tame, one 
especially, which afterward became a great pet 
of mine. You will hear of him later. I had at 
this time also an oribi and a small wildebeeste, 
the former was full-grown, was perfectly tame 
and came and went where he liked, but made 
his headquarters at the Police Camp, where 
he would march about the parade ground as if 
he owned it, and it was an extraordinary thing 
how the dogs belonging to the station got to 
know him, and he them. It was only when a 
stranger arrived with any dogs that there was 
danger to him, but he was exceedingly quick, 
and while I was there, he never came to any 
harm. At certain seasons he would go off for 
days, but always returned. 
Lion fat is a great thing to natives, and for 
this you can get five dollars a bottle. They 
rub it on their bodies as a cure for rheumatism 
and also to make them brave. The former I 
si ’uld not wonder at, but the latter I do not 
bejieve, although taken on the whole, the 
Barotse is a fine specimen and two armed with 
spears only have been known to tackle a lion 
and kill him. Again, I have seen others who 
would not tackle a wounded buck unless trees 
were handy. 
Elephants that Slide. 
There have been remarks made in the daily 
press from time to time respecting the cruelty 
of making elephants slide down an incline into 
water, says the Shooting Times, but a writer in 
the Times combats this opinion and relates an 
incident which shows that wild elephants often, 
without compulsion, use this method of riding 
down steep banks. He says a female elephant, 
accompanied by a calf, in or near the rubber 
plantations of Bolombo, was seen ascending a 
steep incline from some water. They carefully 
avoided the exertion of the climb by making 
their way diagonally up the slope, instead of 
ascending it directly. On their return from 
feeding they came to drink at the same water, 
and, instead of going round to avoid the in¬ 
cline, they both deliberately chose to slide down 
the steep slope to the water. This occurred 
often. On each occasion the elephants ascended 
the slope by the easiest route and descended by 
the shorter and steeper way, which necessitated 
sliding. The animals were quite undisturbed, so 
fear cannot have driven them to this means of 
descent, and the natives state that it was their 
daily habit. No doubt many sportsmen who 
have had much experience with elephants could 
recall similar occurrences. 
J. J. Meyrick, the veteran sportsman, replied 
to the above comments in the same paper, as 
follows: 
“I can corroborate, from personal experience, 
the statement in your paper of Saturday last 
that elephants in a wild state are in the habit 
of sliding down steep inclines. In 1871, while 
shooting in a part of the Sewalik Hills, about 
twenty-five miles from the foot of the Hima¬ 
layas, I came upon a small herd of elephants, 
consisting of two bulls, two cows and a young 
one about the size of a bullock. The shikari 
and I sat on a bank to watch them, but although 
the air was calm, the bulls soon scented us, wav¬ 
ing their trunks from side to side until they 
pointed straight at us. The herd then walked 
into a narrow valley leading to higher parts of 
the hills. From curiosity I followed their tracks 
for about two miles. I found that they had 
gone up ridges so steep that I was obliged to use 
my hands when climbing them, and had slid 
down the opposite sides, their feet having 
plowed grooves from top to bottom of the turfy 
slopes.’’ 
