MAN-EATING LIONS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 990, 3 December 1910, Page 6

MAN-EATING LIONS.

ESCAPE OF LJkI.S. MISSIONARY." " I used rather to pooh-pooh the daft: gers of African travelling," writes Dr.- . . .Wilfrid M'Farlane, of the London Missionary Society, who has just gone back, from England to Mpolokoso, in Rhodesia,, "but not long after my wife and I and; th-ei children left the- train and crossed;. our first big river, the Luapula, we came.' into country-which has recently become - infested with man-eating lions. We were 1 going along -quietly in our usual scatter--1 ed way when we heard a tremendous shouting behind us. The natives were i rushing out of a village, calling • out that - wo would be eaten .by the lions,if we went on. Two-people had been caught . and eaten that very day. We lined.up. and held a council of war, and decided; , to go on, ail keeping close together. These lions seemed to follow us all the day* l , sometimes behind, sometimes in, front* ' One 'evening; just as we were coining near ■ Fort Itoseliery, we came right on two of i them. They had' just crossed tho road ■ in front of- us, and were trotting along : only eighty yards ahead. We kept very , close and made for the Government house as quickly as .-possible. It was somewhat t alarming when the-captain camc running . up, saying, 'They are coming after, us. 1 I saw them through the bush.' As we ! reached the station the lions made off. . and'the next day wo heard that two. -.- more people had been taken from a vil- , , lage close by. . Even after leaving that • district we struck another troop mani eaters. Ono of our men had to climb a | tree to got;away from lions that wero I following him, and . was only, rescued when tho headman went back with a gun and' drove them off." • -