Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa Part 8

The parents take the name of the child, and often address their children as Ma (mother), or Ra (father). Our eldest boy being named Robert, Mrs.

Livingstone was, after his birth, always addressed as Ma-Robert, instead of Mary, her Christian name.

I have examined several cases in which a grandmother has taken upon herself to suckle a grandchild. Masina of Kuruman had no children after the birth of her daughter Sina, and had no milk after Sina was weaned, an event which usually is deferred till the child is two or three years old. Sina married when she was seventeen or eighteen, and had twins; Masina, after at least fifteen years' interval since she had suckled a child, took possession of one of them, applied it to her breast, and milk flowed, so that she was able to nurse the child entirely. Masina was at this time at least forty years of age. I have witnessed several other cases a.n.a.logous to this. A grandmother of forty, or even less, for they become withered at an early age, when left at home with a young child, applies it to her own shriveled breast, and milk soon follows.

In some cases, as that of Ma-bogosing, the chief wife of Mahure, who was about thirty-five years of age, the child was not entirely dependent on the grandmother's breast, as the mother suckled it too. I had witnessed the production of milk so frequently by the simple application of the lips of the child, that I was not therefore surprised when told by the Portuguese in Eastern Africa of a native doctor who, by applying a poultice of the pounded larvae of hornets to the breast of a woman, aided by the attempts of the child, could bring back the milk. Is it not possible that the story in the "Cloud of Witnesses" of a man, during the time of persecution in Scotland, putting his child to his own breast, and finding, to the astonishment of the whole country, that milk followed the act, may have been literally true? It was regarded and is quoted as a miracle; but the feelings of the father toward the child of a murdered mother must have been as nearly as possible a.n.a.logous to the maternal feeling; and, as anatomists declare the structure of both male and female b.r.e.a.s.t.s to be identical, there is nothing physically impossible in the alleged result. The ill.u.s.trious Baron Humboldt quotes an instance of the male breast yielding milk; and, though I am not conscious of being over-credulous, the strange instances I have examined in the opposite s.e.x make me believe that there is no error in that philosopher's statement.

The Boers know from experience that adult captives may as well be left alone, for escape is so easy in a wild country that no fugitive-slave-law can come into operation; they therefore adopt the system of seizing only the youngest children, in order that these may forget their parents and remain in perpetual bondage. I have seen mere infants in their houses repeatedly. This fact was formerly denied; and the only thing which was wanting to make the previous denial of the practice of slavery and slave-hunting by the Transvaal Boers no longer necessary was the declaration of their independence.

In conversation with some of my friends here I learned that Maleke, a chief of the Bakwains, who formerly lived on the hill Litubaruba, had been killed by the bite of a mad dog. My curiosity was strongly excited by this statement, as rabies is so rare in this country. I never heard of another case, and could not satisfy myself that even this was real hydrophobia. While I was at Mabotsa, some dogs became affected by a disease which led them to run about in an incoherent state; but I doubt whether it was any thing but an affection of the brain. No individual or animal got the complaint by inoculation from the animals' teeth; and from all that I could hear, the prevailing idea of hydrophobia not existing within the tropics seems to be quite correct.

The diseases known among the Bakwains are remarkably few. There is no consumption nor scrofula, and insanity and hydrocephalus are rare.

Cancer and cholera are quite unknown. Small-pox and measles pa.s.sed through the country about twenty years ago, and committed great ravages; but, though the former has since broken out on the coast repeatedly, neither disease has since traveled inland. For small-pox, the natives employed, in some parts, inoculation in the forehead with some animal deposit; in other parts, they employed the matter of the small-pox itself; and in one village they seem to have selected a virulent case for the matter used in the operation, for nearly all the village was swept off by the disease in a malignant confluent form. Where the idea came from I can not conceive. It was practiced by the Bakwains at a time when they had no intercourse, direct or indirect, with the southern missionaries. They all adopt readily the use of vaccine virus when it is brought within their reach.

A certain loathsome disease, which decimates the North American Indians, and threatens extirpation to the South Sea Islanders, dies out in the interior of Africa without the aid of medicine; and the Bangwaketse, who brought it from the west coast, lost it when they came into their own land southwest of Kolobeng. It seems incapable of permanence in any form in persons of pure African blood any where in the centre of the country.

In persons of mixed blood it is otherwise; and the virulence of the secondary symptoms seemed to be, in all the cases that came under my care, in exact proportion to the greater or less amount of European blood in the patient. Among the Corannas and Griquas of mixed breed it produces the same ravages as in Europe; among half-blood Portuguese it is equally frightful in its inroads on the system; but in the pure Negro of the central parts it is quite incapable of permanence. Among the Barotse I found a disease called mana.s.sah, which closely resembles that of the 'foeda mulier' of history.

Equally unknown is stone in the bladder and gravel. I never met with a case, though the waters are often so strongly impregnated with sulphate of lime that kettles quickly become incrusted internally with the salt; and some of my patients, who were troubled with indigestion, believed that their stomachs had got into the same condition. This freedom from calculi would appear to be remarkable in the negro race, even in the United States; for seldom indeed have the most famed lithotomists there ever operated on a negro.

The diseases most prevalent are the following: pneumonia, produced by sudden changes of temperature, and other inflammations, as of the bowels, stomach, and pleura; rheumatism; disease of the heart--but these become rare as the people adopt the European dress--various forms of indigestion and ophthalmia; hooping-cough comes frequently; and every year the period preceding the rains is marked by some sort of epidemic.

Sometimes it is general ophthalmia, resembling closely the Egyptian. In another year it is a kind of diarrhoea, which nothing will cure until there is a fall of rain, and any thing acts as a charm after that.

One year the epidemic period was marked by a disease which looked like pneumonia, but had the peculiar symptom strongly developed of great pain in the seventh cervical process. Many persons died of it, after being in a comatose state for many hours or days before their decease. No inspection of the body being ever allowed by these people, and the place of sepulture being carefully concealed, I had to rest satisfied with conjecture. Frequently the Bakwains buried their dead in the huts where they died, for fear lest the witches (Baloi) should disinter their friends, and use some part of the body in their fiendish arts. Scarcely is the breath out of the body when the unfortunate patient is hurried away to be buried. An ant-eater's hole is often selected, in order to save the trouble of digging a grave. On two occasions while I was there this hasty burial was followed by the return home of the men, who had been buried alive, to their affrighted relatives. They had recovered, while in their graves, from prolonged swoons.

In ophthalmia the doctors cup on the temples, and apply to the eyes the pungent smoke of certain roots, the patient, at the same time, taking strong draughts of it up his nostrils. We found the solution of nitrate of silver, two or three grains to the ounce of rain-water, answer the same end so much more effectually, that every morning numbers of patients crowded round our house for the collyrium. It is a good preventive of an acute attack when poured into the eyes as soon as the pain begins, and might prove valuable for travelers. Cupping is performed with the horn of a goat or antelope, having a little hole pierced in the small end. In some cases a small piece of wax is attached, and a temporary hole made through it to the horn. When the air is well withdrawn, and kept out by touching the orifice, at every inspiration, with the point of the tongue, the wax is at last pressed together with the teeth, and the little hole in it closed up, leaving a vacuum within the horn for the blood to flow from the already scarified parts. The edges of the horn applied to the surface are wetted, and cupping is well performed, though the doctor occasionally, by separating the fibrine from the blood in a basin of water by his side, and exhibiting it, pretends that he has extracted something more than blood.

He can thus explain the rationale of the cure by his own art, and the ocular demonstration given is well appreciated.

Those doctors who have inherited their profession as an heirloom from their fathers and grandfathers generally possess some valuable knowledge, the result of long and close observation; but if a man can not say that the medical art is in his family, he may be considered a quack. With the regular pract.i.tioners I always remained on the best terms, by refraining from appearing to doubt their skill in the presence of their patients. Any explanation in private was thankfully received by them, and wrong treatment changed into something more reasonable with cordial good-will, if no one but the doctor and myself were present at the conversation. English medicines were eagerly asked for and accepted by all; and we always found medical knowledge an important aid in convincing the people that we were really anxious for their welfare.

We can not accuse them of ingrat.i.tude; in fact, we shall remember the kindness of the Bakwains to us as long as we live.

The surgical knowledge of the native doctors is rather at a low ebb. No one ever attempted to remove a tumor except by external applications.

Those with which the natives are chiefly troubled are fatty and fibrous tumors; and as they all have the 'vis medicatrix naturae' in remarkable activity, I safely removed an immense number. In ill.u.s.tration of their want of surgical knowledge may be mentioned the case of a man who had a tumor as large as a child's head. This was situated on the nape of his neck, and prevented his walking straight. He applied to his chief, and he got some famous strange doctor from the East Coast to cure him. He and his a.s.sistants attempted to dissolve it by kindling on it a little fire made of a few small pieces of medicinal roots. I removed it for him, and he always walked with his head much more erect than he needed to do ever afterward. Both men and women submit to an operation without wincing, or any of that shouting which caused young students to faint in the operating theatre before the introduction of chloroform. The women pride themselves on their ability to bear pain. A mother will address her little girl, from whose foot a thorn is to be extracted, with, "Now, ma, you are a woman; a woman does not cry." A man scorns to shed tears.

When we were pa.s.sing one of the deep wells in the Kalahari, a boy, the son of an aged father, had been drowned in it while playing on its brink. When all hope was gone, the father uttered an exceedingly great and bitter cry. It was sorrow without hope. This was the only instance I ever met with of a man weeping in this country.

Their ideas on obstetrics are equally unscientific, and a medical man going near a woman at her confinement appeared to them more out of place than a female medical student appears to us in a dissecting-room. A case of twins, however, happening, and the ointment of all the doctors of the town proving utterly insufficient to effect the relief which a few seconds of English art afforded, the prejudice vanished at once. As it would have been out of the question for me to have entered upon this branch of the profession--as indeed it would be inexpedient for any medical man to devote himself exclusively, in a thinly-peopled country, to the practice of medicine--I thereafter reserved myself for the difficult cases only, and had the satisfaction of often conferring great benefits on poor women in their hour of sorrow. The poor creatures are often placed in a little hut built for the purpose, and are left without any a.s.sistance whatever, and the numbers of umbilical herniae which are met with in consequence is very great. The women suffer less at their confinement than is the case in civilized countries; perhaps from their treating it, not as a disease, but as an operation of nature, requiring no change of diet except a feast of meat and abundance of fresh air. The husband on these occasions is bound to slaughter for his lady an ox, or goat, or sheep, according to his means.

My knowledge in the above line procured for me great fame in a department in which I could lay no claim to merit. A woman came a distance of one hundred miles for relief in a complaint which seemed to have baffled the native doctors; a complete cure was the result. Some twelve months after she returned to her husband, she bore a son. Her husband having previously reproached her for being barren, she sent me a handsome present, and proclaimed all over the country that I possessed a medicine for the cure of sterility. The consequence was, that I was teased with applications from husbands and wives from all parts of the country. Some came upward of two hundred miles to purchase the great boon, and it was in vain for me to explain that I had only cured the disease of the other case. The more I denied, the higher their offers rose; they would give any money for the "child medicine"; and it was really heart-rending to hear the earnest entreaty, and see the tearful eye, which spoke the intense desire for offspring: "I am getting old; you see gray hairs here and there on my head, and I have no child; you know how Bechuana husbands cast their old wives away; what can I do? I have no child to bring water to me when I am sick," etc.

The whole of the country adjacent to the Desert, from Kuruman to Kolobeng, or Litubaruba, and beyond up to the lat.i.tude of Lake Ngami, is remarkable for its great salubrity of climate. Not only the natives, but Europeans whose const.i.tutions have been impaired by an Indian climate, find the tract of country indicated both healthy and restorative. The health and longevity of the missionaries have always been fair, though mission-work is not very conducive to either elsewhere. Cases have been known in which patients have come from the coast with complaints closely resembling, if they were not actually, those of consumption; and they have recovered by the influence of the climate alone. It must always be borne in mind that the climate near the coast, from which we received such very favorable reports of the health of the British troops, is actually inferior for persons suffering from pulmonary complaints to that of any part not subjected to the influence of sea-air. I have never seen the beneficial effects of the inland climate on persons of shattered const.i.tutions, nor heard their high praises of the benefit they have derived from traveling, without wishing that its bracing effects should become more extensively known in England. No one who has visited the region I have above mentioned fails to remember with pleasure the wild, healthful gipsy life of wagon-traveling.

A considerable proportion of animal diet seems requisite here.

Independent of the want of salt, we required meat in as large quant.i.ty daily as we do in England, and no bad effects, in the way of biliousness, followed the free use of flesh, as in other hot climates. A vegetable diet causes acidity and heartburn.

Mr. Oswell thought this climate much superior to that of Peru, as far as pleasure is concerned; the want of instruments unfortunately prevented my obtaining accurate scientific data for the medical world on this subject; and were it not for the great expense of such a trip, I should have no hesitation in recommending the borders of the Kalahari Desert as admirably suited for all patients having pulmonary complaints. It is the complete antipodes to our cold, damp, English climate. The winter is perfectly dry; and as not a drop of rain falls during that period, namely, from the beginning of May to the end of August, damp and cold are never combined. However hot the day may have been at Kolobeng--and the thermometer sometimes rose, previous to a fall of rain, up to 96 Deg. in the coolest part of our house--yet the atmosphere never has that steamy feeling nor those debilitating effects so well known in India and on the coast of Africa itself. In the evenings the air becomes deliciously cool, and a pleasant refreshing night follows the hottest day. The greatest heat ever felt is not so oppressive as it is when there is much humidity in the air; and the great evaporation consequent on a fall of rain makes the rainy season the most agreeable for traveling. Nothing can exceed the balmy feeling of the evenings and mornings during the whole year. You wish for an increase neither of cold nor heat; and you can sit out of doors till midnight without ever thinking of colds or rheumatism; or you may sleep out at night, looking up to the moon till you fall asleep, without a thought or sign of moon-blindness. Indeed, during many months there is scarcely any dew.

Chapter 7.

Departure from the Country of the Bakwains--Large black Ant--Land Tortoises--Diseases of wild Animals--Habits of old Lions--Cowardice of the Lion--Its Dread of a Snare--Major Vardon's Note--The Roar of the Lion resembles the Cry of the Ostrich--Seldom attacks full-grown Animals--Buffaloes and Lions--Mice--Serpents--Treading on one--Venomous and harmless Varieties--Fascination--Sekomi's Ideas of Honesty--Ceremony of the Sechu for Boys--The Boyale for young Women--Bamangwato Hills--The Unicorn's Pa.s.s--The Country beyond--Grain--Scarcity of Water--Honorable Conduct of English Gentlemen--Gordon c.u.mming's hunting Adventures--A Word of Advice for young Sportsmen--Bushwomen drawing Water--Ostrich--Silly Habit--Paces--Eggs--Food.

Having remained five days with the wretched Bakwains, seeing the effects of war, of which only a very inadequate idea can ever be formed by those who have not been eye-witnesses of its miseries, we prepared to depart on the 15th of January, 1853. Several dogs, in better condition by far than any of the people, had taken up their residence at the water. No one would own them; there they had remained, and, coming on the trail of the people, long after their departure from the scene of conflict, it was plain they had

"Held o'er the dead their carnival."

Hence the disgust with which they were viewed.

On our way from Khopong, along the ancient river-bed which forms the pathway to Boatlanama, I found a species of cactus, being the third I have seen in the country, namely, one in the colony with a bright red flower, one at Lake Ngami, the flower of which was liver-colored, and the present one, flower unknown. That the plant is uncommon may be inferred from the fact that the Bakwains find so much difficulty in recognizing the plant again after having once seen it, that they believe it has the power of changing its locality.

On the 21st of January we reached the wells of Boatlanama, and found them for the first time empty. Lopepe, which I had formerly seen a stream running from a large reedy pool, was also dry. The hot salt spring of Serinane, east of Lopepe, being undrinkable, we pushed on to Mashue for its delicious waters. In traveling through this country, the olfactory nerves are frequently excited by a strong disagreeable odor.

This is caused by a large jet-black ant named "Leshonya". It is nearly an inch in length, and emits a pungent smell when alarmed, in the same manner as the skunk. The scent must be as volatile as ether, for, on irritating the insect with a stick six feet long, the odor is instantly perceptible.

Occasionally we lighted upon land tortoises, which, with their unlaid eggs, make a very agreeable dish. We saw many of their trails leading to the salt fountain; they must have come great distances for this health-giving article. In lieu thereof they often devour wood-ashes. It is wonderful how this reptile holds its place in the country. When seen, it never escapes. The young are taken for the sake of their sh.e.l.ls; these are made into boxes, which, filled with sweet-smelling roots, the women hang around their persons. When older it is used as food, and the sh.e.l.l converted into a rude basin to hold food or water. It owes its continuance neither to speed nor cunning. Its color, yellow and dark brown, is well adapted, by its similarity to the surrounding gra.s.s and brushwood, to render it indistinguishable; and, though it makes an awkward attempt to run on the approach of man, its trust is in its bony covering, from which even the teeth of a hyaena glance off foiled. When this long-lived creature is about to deposit her eggs, she lets herself into the ground by throwing the earth up round her sh.e.l.l, until only the top is visible; then covering up the eggs, she leaves them until the rains begin to fall and the fresh herbage appears; the young ones then come out, their sh.e.l.ls still quite soft, and, unattended by their dam, begin the world for themselves. Their food is tender gra.s.s and a plant named thotona, and they frequently resort to heaps of ashes and places containing efflorescence of the nitrates for the salts these contain.

Inquiries among the Bushmen and Bakalahari, who are intimately acquainted with the habits of the game, lead to the belief that many diseases prevail among wild animals. I have seen the kokong or gnu, kama or hartebeest, the tsessebe, kukama, and the giraffe, so mangy as to be uneatable even by the natives. Reference has already been made to the peripneumonia which cuts off horses, tolos or koodoos. Great numbers also of zebras are found dead with ma.s.ses of foam at the nostrils, exactly as occurs in the common "horse-sickness". The production of the malignant carbuncle called kuatsi, or selonda, by the flesh when eaten, is another proof of the disease of the tame and wild being identical.

I once found a buffalo blind from ophthalmia standing by the fountain Otse; when he attempted to run he lifted up his feet in the manner peculiar to blind animals. The rhinoceros has often worms on the conjunction of his eyes; but these are not the cause of the dimness of vision which will make him charge past a man who has wounded him, if he stands perfectly still, in the belief that his enemy is a tree.

It probably arises from the horn being in the line of vision, for the variety named kuabaoba, which has a straight horn directed downward away from that line, possesses acute eyesight, and is much more wary.

All the wild animals are subject to intestinal worms besides. I have observed bunches of a tape-like thread and short worms of enlarged sizes in the rhinoceros. The zebra and elephants are seldom without them, and a thread-worm may often be seen under the peritoneum of these animals.

Short red larvae, which convey a stinging sensation to the hand, are seen cl.u.s.tering round the orifice of the windpipe (trachea) of this animal at the back of the throat; others are seen in the frontal sinus of antelopes; and curious flat, leech-like worms, with black eyes, are found in the stomachs of leches. The zebra, giraffe, eland, and kukama have been seen mere skeletons from decay of their teeth as well as from disease.

The carnivora, too, become diseased and mangy; lions become lean and perish miserably by reason of the decay of the teeth. When a lion becomes too old to catch game, he frequently takes to killing goats in the villages; a woman or child happening to go out at night falls a prey too; and as this is his only source of subsistence now, he continues it.

From this circ.u.mstance has arisen the idea that the lion, when he has once tasted human flesh, loves it better than any other. A man-eater is invariably an old lion; and when he overcomes his fear of man so far as to come to villages for goats, the people remark, "His teeth are worn, he will soon kill men." They at once acknowledge the necessity of instant action, and turn out to kill him. When living far away from population, or when, as is the case in some parts, he entertains a wholesome dread of the Bushmen and Bakalahari, as soon as either disease or old age overtakes him, he begins to catch mice and other small rodents, and even to eat gra.s.s; the natives, observing undigested vegetable matter in his droppings, follow up his trail in the certainty of finding him scarcely able to move under some tree, and dispatch him without difficulty. The gra.s.s may have been eaten as medicine, as is observed in dogs.

That the fear of man often remains excessively strong in the carnivora is proved from well-authenticated cases in which the lioness, in the vicinity of towns where the large game had been unexpectedly driven away by fire-arms, has been known to a.s.suage the paroxysms of hunger by devouring her own young. It must be added, that, though the effluvium which is left by the footsteps of man is in general sufficient to induce lions to avoid a village, there are exceptions; so many came about our half-deserted houses at Chonuane while we were in the act of removing to Kolobeng, that the natives who remained with Mrs. Livingstone were terrified to stir out of doors in the evenings. b.i.t.c.hes, also, have been known to be guilty of the horridly unnatural act of eating their own young, probably from the great desire for animal food, which is experienced by the inhabitants as well.

When a lion is met in the daytime, a circ.u.mstance by no means unfrequent to travelers in these parts, if preconceived notions do not lead them to expect something very "n.o.ble" or "majestic", they will see merely an animal somewhat larger than the biggest dog they ever saw, and partaking very strongly of the canine features; the face is not much like the usual drawings of a lion, the nose being prolonged like a dog's; not exactly such as our painters make it--though they might learn better at the Zoological Gardens--their ideas of majesty being usually shown by making their lions' faces like old women in nightcaps. When encountered in the daytime, the lion stands a second or two, gazing, then turns slowly round, and walks as slowly away for a dozen paces, looking over his shoulder; then begins to trot, and, when he thinks himself out of sight, bounds off like a greyhound. By day there is not, as a rule, the smallest danger of lions which are not molested attacking man, nor even on a clear moonlight night, except when they possess the breeding storgh* (natural affection); this makes them brave almost any danger; and if a man happens to cross to the windward of them, both lion and lioness will rush at him, in the manner of a b.i.t.c.h with whelps. This does not often happen, as I only became aware of two or three instances of it. In one case a man, pa.s.sing where the wind blew from him to the animals, was bitten before he could climb a tree; and occasionally a man on horseback has been caught by the leg under the same circ.u.mstances. So general, however, is the sense of security on moonlight nights, that we seldom tied up our oxen, but let them lie loose by the wagons; while on a dark, rainy night, if a lion is in the neighborhood, he is almost sure to venture to kill an ox. His approach is always stealthy, except when wounded; and any appearance of a trap is enough to cause him to refrain from making the last spring. This seems characteristic of the feline species; when a goat is picketed in India for the purpose of enabling the huntsmen to shoot a tiger by night, if on a plain, he would whip off the animal so quickly by a stroke of the paw that no one could take aim; to obviate this, a small pit is dug, and the goat is picketed to a stake in the bottom; a small stone is tied in the ear of the goat, which makes him cry the whole night. When the tiger sees the appearance of a trap, he walks round and round the pit, and allows the hunter, who is lying in wait, to have a fair shot.

* (Greek) sigma-tau-omicron-rho-gamma-eta.

When a lion is very hungry, and lying in wait, the sight of an animal may make him commence stalking it. In one case a man, while stealthily crawling towards a rhinoceros, happened to glance behind him, and found to his horror a lion STALKING HIM; he only escaped by springing up a tree like a cat. At Lopepe a lioness sprang on the after quarter of Mr.

Oswell's horse, and when we came up to him we found the marks of the claws on the horse, and a scratch on Mr. O.'s hand. The horse, on feeling the lion on him, sprang away, and the rider, caught by a wait-a-bit thorn, was brought to the ground and rendered insensible.

His dogs saved him. Another English gentleman (Captain Codrington) was surprised in the same way, though not hunting the lion at the time, but turning round he shot him dead in the neck. By accident a horse belonging to Codrington ran away, but was stopped by the bridle catching a stump; there he remained a prisoner two days, and when found the whole s.p.a.ce around was marked by the footprints of lions. They had evidently been afraid to attack the haltered horse from fear that it was a trap.

Two lions came up by night to within three yards of oxen tied to a wagon, and a sheep tied to a tree, and stood roaring, but afraid to make a spring. On another occasion one of our party was lying sound asleep and unconscious of danger between two natives behind a bush at Mashue; the fire was nearly out at their feet in consequence of all being completely tired out by the fatigues of the previous day; a lion came up to within three yards of the fire, and there commenced roaring instead of making a spring: the fact of their riding-ox being tied to the bush was the only reason the lion had for not following his instinct, and making a meal of flesh. He then stood on a knoll three hundred yards distant, and roared all night, and continued his growling as the party moved off by daylight next morning.

Nothing that I ever learned of the lion would lead me to attribute to it either the ferocious or n.o.ble character ascribed to it elsewhere. It possesses none of the n.o.bility of the Newfoundland or St. Bernard dogs.

With respect to its great strength there can be no doubt. The immense ma.s.ses of muscle around its jaws, shoulders, and forearms proclaim tremendous force. They would seem, however, to be inferior in power to those of the Indian tiger. Most of those feats of strength that I have seen performed by lions, such as the taking away of an ox, were not carrying, but dragging or trailing the carca.s.s along the ground: they have sprung on some occasions on to the hind-quarters of a horse, but no one has ever seen them on the withers of a giraffe. They do not mount on the hind-quarters of an eland even, but try to tear him down with their claws. Messrs. Oswell and Vardon once saw three lions endeavoring to drag down a buffalo, and they were unable to do so for a time, though he was then mortally wounded by a two-ounce ball.*

* This singular encounter, in the words of an eye-witness, happened as follows:

"My South African Journal is now before me, and I have got hold of the account of the lion and buffalo affair; here it is: '15th September, 1846. Oswell and I were riding this afternoon along the banks of the Limpopo, when a waterbuck started in front of us. I dismounted, and was following it through the jungle, when three buffaloes got up, and, after going a little distance, stood still, and the nearest bull turned round and looked at me. A ball from the two-ouncer crashed into his shoulder, and they all three made off.

Oswell and I followed as soon as I had reloaded, and when we were in sight of the buffalo, and gaining on him at every stride, three lions leaped on the unfortunate brute; he bellowed most l.u.s.tily as he kept up a kind of running fight, but he was, of course, soon overpowered and pulled down. We had a fine view of the struggle, and saw the lions on their hind legs tearing away with teeth and claws in most ferocious style. We crept up within thirty yards, and, kneeling down, blazed away at the lions. My rifle was a single barrel, and I had no spare gun. One lion fell dead almost ON the buffalo; he had merely time to turn toward us, seize a bush with his teeth, and drop dead with the stick in his jaws. The second made off immediately; and the third raised his head, coolly looked round for a moment, then went on tearing and biting at the carca.s.s as hard as ever. We retired a short distance to load, then again advanced and fired. The lion made off, but a ball that he received OUGHT to have stopped him, as it went clean through his shoulder-blade. He was followed up and killed, after having charged several times. Both lions were males. It is not often that one BAGS a brace of lions and a bull buffalo in about ten minutes. It was an exciting adventure, and I shall never forget it.'

"Such, my dear Livingstone, is the plain unvarnished account.

The buffalo had, of course, gone close to where the lions were lying down for the day; and they, seeing him lame and bleeding, thought the opportunity too good a one to be lost.

"Ever yours, Frank Vardon."

In general the lion seizes the animal he is attacking by the flank near the hind leg, or by the throat below the jaw. It is questionable whether he ever attempts to seize an animal by the withers. The flank is the most common point of attack, and that is the part he begins to feast on first. The natives and lions are very similar in their tastes in the selection of t.i.t-bits: an eland may be seen disemboweled by a lion so completely that he scarcely seems cut up at all. The bowels and fatty parts form a full meal for even the largest lion. The jackal comes sniffing about, and sometimes suffers for his temerity by a stroke from the lion's paw laying him dead. When gorged, the lion falls fast asleep, and is then easily dispatched. Hunting a lion with dogs involves very little danger as compared with hunting the Indian tiger, because the dogs bring him out of cover and make him stand at bay, giving the hunter plenty of time for a good deliberate shot.