Man-Eaters (2 page)

It is interesting to speculate on the reactions of the victim of a lion's attack during the brief moments of consciousness that precede a very merciful death; for the lion does kill mercifully, in that he kills quickly. I think we have all experienced imaginatively the horror of such an end and its at-tendent physical torture, and that is the only way any one could. When you are attacked by a lion you will not experience any fear nor feel any pain, provided, of course, that you are not rescued before you are killed. You do not believe this? I did not suppose that you would.

A book, Is Nature Cruel?, written some forty years ago by J. Crowther Hirst, contains statements by a number of men who had been mauled by lions, which support my contention. Here is a personal experience of the great African missionary-explorer, Livingston.

"Growling horribly close to my ear, the lion shook me as a terrier does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of terror."

An English officer, who was fearfully clawed and bitten by a lion, writes of the experience.

"Regarding my sensations during the time of the attack upon me by the lion was in progress, I had no feeling of pain whatever, although there there was a distinct feeling of being bitten; that is, I was perfectly conscious, independently of seeing the performance, that the lion was gnawing at me; but there was no pain. To show that the feeling, or rather want of it, was in no wise due to excessive terror I may mention that, whilst my thighs were being gnawed, I took two cartridges out of the

breast pocket of my shirt and threw them to the Kaffir, who was hovering a few yards away, telling him to load my rifle..."

And now a word for the man-eaters. The same intelligence that created us created them. It gave them large bodies and enormous vitality, requiring great quantities of food for their support; but it did not endow them with alimentary processes fitting them to assimilate broccoli, artichokes, avocados, or spaghetti. Therefore, they eat meat, and we are meat. Their methods of obtaining meat may seem ruthless to us, but you must remember that lions have no packers to do their killing for them. Doubtless our methods seem ruthless to pigs, cows, chickens, and sheep. However, I am going right ahead eating prime beef; and I accord to the man-eaters their inalienable right to go on eating us, provided that they can catch us.