102
Seven Years in South Africa.
In districts where they are much hunted, and where they have consequently become familiar with the sound of fire-arms, as well as in parts where there is hardly any game of the kind for which they care, lions are much more dangerous than in places where their food is plentiful, and where human
NOCTURNAL ATTACK BY LION.
footsteps rarely penetrate. Most notorious for their audacity are those which haunt the banks of the Maressana and Setlagole rivers, and those that are found in the Matabele country. Except perhaps the fox, no animal surpasses them in the craftiness with which they set themselves to secure their prey. Sometimes a group of them institutes a sort of