Evening star., 1931-04-05

south of Edward are a high, grassy
IA steppe about $500 feet above sea
level sunbaked. dry reaching from the escarp-
mert cn the west to the Ruchuru River, from
there sweeping on, as the Ruchuru plains,
10 the wall of the eastern escarpment. They
are q great grazing ground; fires scar them
every year. the light surface fires Of Africa,
burning off the old grass and giving the new
a chance. Almost the only trees are the
crooked little thorny acacias and the cando-
Rbra eurhorbia.
where the Ruindi River cuts its deeply
'eroded way to Lake Edward from its source
somewhere back in the KaSali range is deep
ravine with cliff like sides, its bottom land
thick with forest where few buffalo and
elephant yet hide. There were great herds Of
them, once, IS the trails show, before the first
hunters got into that game pocket, but only
the remnants are left The antelopes are there,
however. literally thousands of them, chiefly
the Eg;lt, graceful cob and the dark prune-
colorcd topi but water buck, bush buck reed
buck are there also in numbers. There are
many wild pig, too, and wart hog.
And Eonsl 1t has been asserted that the
Rundi plains have more lions TO the square
mile th3n any other part of the world The
natives have fed the district except for two
small villages and the runners always go in
pairs. When We were here before our mes
sergsrS esiI2d to go in. threes. the lions were SO
threatening. though they never take such toll
of the natives as do the leopards There is
lien whose teeth and strength are so far gone
that he turns to man as the easiest prey. That
is generally true, for many notorious man
eaters have been found to be sore-mouthed old
fellows, but not necessarily true. Sometimes
young lion picks upon a chance man through
curiosity or inexperience, and finding a to
lie an easy victim or else acquiring taste for
that kind of flesh, he goes right on hunting
him
THE famous man-eaters of Tsavo were in
excellent condition SelouS records that
five lions came up the Inquisis River and killed
four Matabele women-and lions in a troop are
likely to be young males. The feeble old chap
mas to hunt alone. Again lioness in fine
condition but evidently very hungry came to
SelcuS' camp three times being driven out each
time. and at last rushed in and seized native
by the fire. gripping his leg.
The native forced his hands into her mouth
on each side and the lioness let go and seized
another man by the back and then by the
hand and was dragging him off when she was
fired on. There were four wagons in the camp
and two Enclosures of fence and a lot of col
ored Colonial drivers and 20 Matabele Kaffirs-
SO I feel that the Ruindi natives desire for
company was not too precautionary.
Our business here was with the lions and
with the motion pictures of the antelopes Re-
Gently the plains have been made game re-
serve. from the west bank of the Ruchuru to
the Luofu River up on the escarpment, a wise
preeaution that will save these wonderful herds
from exeermination; but lions are not protected,
and to hunt few of them was doing a good
turn to the poor antelopes they dined on. We
camped that night on old camping ground
on high plateau encircled, moat-wise, by the
rayines of the Ruindi River The place used
to be gite-that is. a rest camp of grass houses
put up to shelter travelling ofictals-but after
the Abandonment of Luofu the Cite
longer kept up, and the natives have occupied
it. So we left the grass houses alone for fear
OF the spirillum tick that is brought by any
native occupancy, and set up our tents in the
fiat cleared space in the center of the ground.
Th3t night we heard lion for the first time,
the deep hosTse hunting gruht with the long
dTawn-out rumble at the end. 1t is diScOn-
certing sound, seeming sometimes to come from
far away when one knows that it is close at
hand, and great deal more quickening to the
imagination than the roar, for lions roar gen.
orally after they have satisfied their hunger,
and those hoarse, hungry, echoing grunts mean
business. There were lion choruses all about
us on the plains that night and one lion
prowled up and down the rayine below u.s. We
put the Muley in a grass house with the porters,
and the boys built fires and we tied down the
flaps of our tents against any unforeseen in
GAsson. 1 don't know, of any case where a
lion has put his head in tent door although
leopards will sometimes sneak in, especially if a
pee dog is in the tent, but there is the famous
story OF the lion who took the traveller out of
the sleeping car in British East, and it's just
as well not to invite the exception to the rule.
There are just two ways of getting ior
on the Ruindi, sitting up for him a dead
bait at night or prowling about in the dawn
on the chance of encountering him returning
from his nights hunt-and the further
chance of being able TO run him down and
corner him There was hope of being able
10 happen on lion during the day. but that was
slight, and the hope of catching up slighter
yet We had no horses for that sort OF thing