The Lion and the Elephant. Charles John Andersson
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duet that lasted, with very little intermission, until break of day. Continued discharges of firearms kept them from doing further mischief."
The particulars of the second catastrophe in my friend's encampment, which occurred at an after- period, he communicated to me by letter in the fol- lowing words:—
"At about 11 o'clock, P.M., I was startled out of my sleep by a fearful shriek, such as I had only once before heard uttered by a human being. The thought at once struck me that the two notorious 'man-caters,' who had enacted so horrible a tragedy in my bivouac on a former occasion, were again prowling about, and had perhaps seized some of the Bushmen lately come to pay me a visit, and who were encamped at the back of my kraal. Snatching
THE LION.
up my rifle and pistol, I bounded out of my bed, and soon found my suspicions confirmed by the dismal bowls and wailings of several terrified Bush- men, whom I met hastening towards my waggon for protection; and a poor youth, whom we had cap- tured the day before, was giving vent to his distress in piteous lamentations for the loss of his father, the Bushman Chief, whom one of the lions had, be said, destroyed.
"Calling to some of my people to follow, I hur- ried away in the direction pointed out by the lad. The night, which in itself was intensely dark, re- ceived an additional gloom from the shadow of a cluster of thick-boughed trees under which we were encamped. In order, therefore, to throw some light on surrounding objects, we set fire to the temporary huts, and commenced our search. M. Hahn, the missionary, who was of our party, also came to our assistance with a lanthorn. The dogs, meantime, kept up a furious barking; yet with the certain knowledge that the cowardly murderer was only a few paces from us, we could not obtain even a glimpse of him.
"At length, to the horror of us all, we stumbled on the mangled remains of the unfortunate Bushman who had fallen a victim to the monster. One of his arms was bitten off at the shoulder, whilst his hand still convulsively clutched a part of his dress. This, and some portions of his intestines, was all that remained of a man, alive and quite unconscious of bis fate only a very few minutes before. The sight was both shocking and sickening in the extreme;
A NOTORIOUS "MAN-EATER."
but, as it was now useless to continue a further search in the dark, we returned to our respective bivouacs. Sleep was, of course, out of the question. The dreadful scene haunted my imagination un- ceasingly, and I resolved, as soon as the day should dawn, to pursue the horrible 'man-eater,' and, if possible, to terminate his existence.
"Accordingly, on the following morning," my friend goes on to say. " Every man possessed of .a gun joined in the chase. At a short distance from the camp the brute was discovered; but though wo followed him up for a long time, we could never get a shot at him. The cowardly night-prowler took care not to expose himself; and unfortunately only two dogs ventured to face him. Had the whole pack assailed the beast, he would certainly have been brought to bay and despatched. We were on several occasions close upon him, but the dense- ness of the bush always helped him to escape before we could get a good aim. At length we lost his track, and after endeavouring in vain to recover it, were compelled to face homewards without ridding the country of so dire a "pest."
Though the lion in question escaped Mr. Green for the time, yet it is satisfactory to add that at an after-period this same animal (as there was every reason to believe) met its death at his hands, though this was at a considerable distance from the spot where the melancholy catastrophe, just related, occurred. It was further believed that this beast was one of the two notorious "man-eaters" that
THE LION.
had some time previously carried off one of ray friend's people.
These animals were very accurately described by the natives, who said that the smaller of them catered for the larger ; and that this daring monster had been known to enter a village arid carry off no fewer than three individuals the same night, returning in the day- time to feast on the remains of the victims. They told my friend, moreover, that upwards of one hundred human beings had already fallen a prey to the beasts in question, adding "that the Bushmen, located in the neighbourhood, had been necessitated to fly the country in consequence of so many of their kith and kin having been killed by them."
"A Bushman, whom we found in the vicinity, on our way northward," Mr. Green further wrote, "fully corroborated this statement; and on being interrogated as to whether there were any villages of his countrymen along the Omuramba to the east- ward, replied at once that they could not live there, as the lions destroyed so many of them." The Damaras, moreover, when speaking of these formidable foes always said, "Those lions! the smaller alone killing the people, are known through- out all this region, pointing at the same time to the north, south, east, and west, and are the dread of every one."
"Now it was the lesser of the 'man-eaters,'" my friend went on to say," of which I had so happily rid the country, and I consequently felt more pleased than if I had killed the largest bull- elephant that roams the wastes of Africa. I had
DREADFUL INCIDENT.
by this act conferred a benefit on my friends, 'the children of the desert,' and had doubtless been the means of saving many from the horrible fate that had of late fallen to the lot of numbers of their intimates and relatives."
Gordon Gumming, again, very graphically de- scribes a like dreadful incident to those just named, and of which, like Mr. Steneberg and Mr. Green, he was himself, so to say, a spectator.
"Having outspanned, we at once set about making a 'kraal' for the cattle, and that of the worst description of thorn trees, as I had now become very particular since my severe loss by lions on the first of the month. I had yet, however, a fearful lesson to learn, as to the nature and character of those beasts, of which I had at one time entertained so little fear; and on this night a horrible tragedy was to be enacted in my little lonely camp of so very awful and appalling a, nature as to make the blood curdle in my veins. I worked till near sundown at one side of the 'kraal' with Hendrich, my first waggon-driver, I cutting down the trees with my axe, and he dragging them to the spot. When the 'kraal' was completed, and the cattle secured within it (as were also my two waggons, the horses being made fast, to a trekton stretched between the hind wheels of the vehicles), [ turned my attention to preparing a pot of barley-broth. For this purpose, I light oil a fire outside of the 'kraal,' between it and the water, close on the river-bank, and under a dense bush grove of shady trees, but made no kind of
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fence around this, our sitting place for the evening.
"The Hottentots, without any reason, made their fire about fifty paces from mine; they, according to their usual custom, being satisfied with the shelter of a large dense bush. The evening passed away cheer- fully. Soon after it was dark we heard elephants breaking the trees in the forest across the river; and once or twice I strode away into the dark- ness some distance from the fireside, to stand and listen to them. I little, at that moment, imagined the imminent peril to which I was exposing my life, or thought that a blood thirsty 'man-eater' lion was couching near, and only watching his opportunity to consign one of us to a most horrible death. About three hours after the sun went down, I called my men to come and take their coffee and supper, which was ready for them at my fire, and after supper three of them re- turned before their comrades to their own fireside and lay down: these were John Stofolus, Hendrich, and Ruyter. In a few minutes an ox came out by the gate of the 'kraal' and walked round the back of it, Hendrich got up and drove him in again, and then went back to his fireside and lay down. Hendrich and Ruyter lay on one side of the fire under one blanket, and John Stofolus lay on the other. At this moment I was sitting taking some barley-broth, our fire was very small, and the night pitchy dark and windy. Owing to our proximity to the village the wood was very scarce, the Bakalahari having burnt it all in their fires.
"Suddenly the appalling and murderous voice
DEATH OF HENDRlCH.
of an angry, blood-thirsty lion burst upon my car within a few yards of us, followed by the shrieking