Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/85

 black boy—bitten his head clear off, so the local story goes. However, no one knows why the lion killed the boy in this case for, of the three possible witnesses, two were asleep and the third dead.

It is possible, of course, that the lion deliberately attacked the boma without provocation, but it seems unlikely, for lions are driven to these extremities chiefly by hunger; and in this case the lion could have satisfied his hunger by the bait that had been laid out for him. The usual man-eater is an old lion, who in the season of scattered game finds it impossible with his failing strength and speed to catch animals for food. To keep from starving he attacks the native flocks and herds, or the natives themselves. The most famous man-eaters, the lions of Tsavo, which spread such terror as almost to stop construction on a part of the Uganda railway, were, indeed, an exception to the rule. Colonel Patterson, whose classic account of them is one of the great animal stories of the world, accounted for these young, vigorous animals becoming man-eaters because some of the coolie workers who died were put in the bush unburied and the lions had acquired a taste for human flesh by eating these bodies. After this taste was acquired these lions hunted men just as the ordinary lion hunted zebras. They made a regular business of it. It was their daily fare, and they took a terrible toll before they were finally killed. But these lions were killing for food just as if they were killing zebras.

Even when forced to fight, the lion is not vindictive. If an elephant gets a man he is likely to trample on