he knows that at dawn the last chance of his having a
meal will have gone.

Accordingly a conflict is set up in his mind. His dislike of human
flesh plus that dread of the human species which he shares with the
whole brute creation is on the one side, his ravening hunger on the
other. Increase the hunger-pressure to a certain pitch, and the lion
will attack. I have not forgotten that "The Man-Eaters of Tsavo" used
to take their human toll early in the evening, but not alone had they
deliberately adopted man-eating, so to say, as a profession, but long
impunity had made them careless.

I knew a man who once lay sleeping in a patrol tent near Pretorius Kop
on the Delagoa road. The night was chill, so he folded a gunny bag over
his feet to keep them warm. In the morning, at the critical time,
something seized him by the foot and pulled him out of the tent. He
knew at once what had happened, a lion had caught hold of him. Close to
where he lay stood a billy half full of cold tea. He grasped this in
passing, and, as soon as he was clear of the tent, belabored the lion
over the face with it. The brute dropped him and made off. The man's
ankle was slightly bruised, but the skin was not broken. This proved
clearly that the lion was an old one with teeth worn down to mere
stumps.

The first time I heard a lion roar was when two of them had pulled down
a sick ox about a hundred yards from my tent. Another lion approached,
and the two in possession roared apparently to warn off the intruder.
It was from the spoors, which I examined after day had broken, that I
inferred the details. To judge by the tracks the last-comer was a very
old animal.

The next occasion was when a donkey, which was tied to a tree within
four paces of where I was sitting over a very small fire, was carried
off. Two lions sprang on the poor animal simultaneously; they made no
sound until they had dragged their prey into the bush, a distance of
about twenty yards. Then they roared together, their raucous voices
mingling in a most peculiar and awe-inspiring duet. Very soon they
dragged the carcass to a spot about forty yards farther on, where they
ate it. They roared at intervals during the repast probably as a
warning to me not to interfere with them. The third instance happened
when a lioness was shot through the spine and thus disabled. Her voice
was the most terrible of all.

There are many instances recorded among the natives of lions becoming
habit