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Show Jl Hunter's Talp of the Lion as hp Finds him -Dangprousand Contpmptiop . By W. Robert Fbran COPYPIOHT W RlDOWCf CO. p LL big game hunters are dlvid- i A- ed in their opinions as to ' which is the most dangerous k ff'.; animal to hunt in Africa. jomi.'- ' Some select the lion, others Zf ja the buffalo, others again the I rhinoceros, while the greater majority name the elephant. Jf- It is purely a matter of which Cj(?W animal, in the hunter's own 'Yfofrifp experience, has been the most X&Stfck dangerous. Personally, as the result of rTH'-' many years' experience ith ,2SS'.. big game in Africa, I chose the - fcjfra elephant as the most dangerous. danger-ous. Perhaps I have been unduly un-duly fortunate in encounters with the lion, and that alone makes him appear anything but the "king of beasts" that he is so popularly supposed to be. I have invariably experienced the greatest danger dan-ger in hunting where elephants were concerned. With lions I have never had any serious trouble. In fact I have rather a sneaking contempt for them, for they are harmless except when they are wounded and followed into the long grass, or in the case of a lioness with cubs. So great a contempt have the men in East Africa for them that they have now taken to hunting them on horseback, riding them down and shooting them with revolvers. I shall endeavor to show why the hunters of Africa look so lightly upon these tawny beasts of the jungle. I must confess, unless I be misunderstood, mis-understood, that lions may be as dangerous and even more so than other animals of the plains or forests, under certain circumstances, but it has never ben my lot to experience any great danger dan-ger from them. This is primarily due to an inborn in-born caution begot as the result of seven years' hunting in the wilderness of tropical Africa. At times there are man-eaters at large, but for the most part they are lions that have tasted blood or that are too old to .hunt their natural prey, the zebras. Man-eaters are a rarity rather than otherwise in East Africa and 'Uganda. In fact I know of only one case where a white man has been eaten eat-en by a lion during the whole seven years of my residence in East Africa. The story of this is dreadful enough in its pitiless detail, but there is a touch of humor in the story,' notwithstand- and taken refuge under un-der the postoffice. Anyway, Any-way, whatever the cause of its arrival, the fact remains that it was very easily caught and adopted by the postmaster. It grew into a fine-sized lion before it took some silly, childish, lion complaint and went the way of all of us. The game warden of the country had two young lion cubs in his- garden and used ' them as pets. They were the two most playful youngsters young-sters imaginable and spent their spare moments mo-ments stalking any one who might be calling call-ing on the owner. I remember taking a little lit-tle girl to see them on one occasion. The two cubs immediately began be-gan to stalk her in a most realistic manner, much to her embarrassment. embar-rassment. They died iL with H. v long grass on the opposite bank moved apart and a. graceful young lioness stepped out into the open! I was considerably taken aback, for I had no means of offense or defense; moreover, she w:as less than a stone's throw away from me. I looked at her and she looked at me. Then as quietly as she had come, she departed. My dog had run toward me meanwhile and caught a glimpse of the lioness disappearing in the long grass. He dashed after her, and I had much ado to recall him. The lioness crashed off at a gallop gal-lop into the plains and that was the last I saw of her. It was certainly a little upsetting and quite spoiled my afternoon's stroll. Needless to after a short time in captivity. It often happens this way A party of us went out one Sunday after lions and adopted the novel method of riding them down on pony-back. We had not been out long before we "put up" a big tawny fellow and immediately imme-diately gave chase. There were four of us in the party and we soon rounded the lion up in fine shape. While one of us fired at him in the open plain with a revolver, wounding him badly, he came to bay, clawing up the earth in huge patches with his claws and emitting terrifying roars. We closed in upon him from all sides, having ing. I was stationed at a small outlying government post early in 1904, when a native came in one day and reported that a white man, who had been prospecting for land, had disappeared and left his caravan of porters almost starving some days 'march away from my post. I hastened out to search for the man and to relieve the porters from their predicament. On my arrival at the camp I found that the porters had no idea what had become of their master. At first I suspected foul play, but later came to the conclusion that the man had fallen a victim to a prowling beast of the jungles. I instituted a close search and eventually found the head and shoulders of the poor fellow. He had been eaten by a lion, of that there could be no mistake, judging by the remains. The remnants of the body were in a bad state of decompositioon and I had them placed in a packing-case for burial. On my way to the grave to perform the burial service I was almost overcome over-come with laughter, despite the sad occasion, by observing on the packing-case coffin tie stenciled sten-ciled words, "Keep In a cool place," "Stow away from the boilers." The packing-case had been used to ship cans of butter to East Africa, hence the painted signs. The natives occasionally fall victims to the depredations of lions, but the white man rarely does for some unknown reason. Even then the deaths are more often due to gangrene setting in where men have been mauled and rarely from actual direct killing. I remember well my first meeting with a lion. I was coming home from a dinner party late at night in Nairobi, the capital of East Africa, and had decided to inspect one of my military guards on the government railway buildings. When I had approached near enough to the sentry to hear what' was going on. I was surprised to hear him banging the corrugated iron wall of the building with the butt end of his Martini-Henri rifle. He was shouting "Shoo! shoo!" at the top of his voice. I ran toward him to discover what was the matter. "Why are you making this noise, you fool?" I cried "I lion, sir, very near, eating a zebra," he replied. re-plied. I ran forward and there, sure enough, was a big black-maned lion, in the bright moonlight, eating a zebra within fifty yards of the sentry. He had evidently chased the zebra into the township, killed It and was now happily taking his supper He paid not the slightest attention to the sentry's noise, but kept on tearing great masses of flesh from the zebra's carcass, purring loudly all the time like a huge cat. My sympathy was with the sentry, for he dare not leave his post and he dare not fire at the lloon, for he was uncertain as to the accuracy of his old weapon, which had been condemned for many years by the government and was now totally unfit for use. Telling the sentry to take advantage of the safety offered him at the top of a near-by lamppost. lamp-post. I hastened to my house to get my sportini: ritle. In order to do this I had to pass within one hundred yards of the lion, who paid no attention atten-tion to me at all. I hurried back to the spot with my trusty rifle and fired at the lion, badly wounding it. He dashed off into the plains behind be-hind the town, emitting angry roars as he went. 1 decided to follow him for a time at least, but after a tiring chase he outdistanced me and 1 was forced to return to bed Next morning I rode out into the plains and searched for him. I soon picked up his snoor and in two hours had killed my first lion within a few miles of Nairobi township. He was a very fine specimen and well worthy of my Initial effort ef-fort in lion-hunting. 1 was justly proud of my achievement, but had to submit to a considerable consider-able amount of good-natured chaff from my brother officials for being so keen as to hunt my first lion by moonlight in the streets of the town On another occasion a young lion cub was found by a party of us under the raised floor of the corrugated-iron postoffice building In the main street of Nairobi. It had apparently come into town with Its mother to view it by night and had probably been frightened bj- something 6ay I returned to my camp and next time I took a stroll I carried my gun with me. It is strange that the lioness should have been in these parts, for never before had one been seen in that neighborhood. neigh-borhood. However, a few days later I left Muhoroni to run into Kisumu forty miles away. I traveled by a hand-propelled trolley on the railway. The tri-weekly passenger train from the coast to the lake had preceded me by a bare fifteen minutes. Less than three miles out of Muhoroni station, as we were descending a dip in the railway, I noticed something on the track. We were approaching ap-proaching it at a high rate of speed and I could not at first make out what it was. Suddenly, when only about sixty yards away, two young lionesses got up slowly from the track, where they were lazily stretching themselves, and climbed the bank beside the track! I had only a shotgun and did not dare fire at them, for I had only small bird-shot with me and only two shells in all. I shouted to my native trolley boys to make the machine travel at its highest speed and they stuck to their work like heroes. We dashed past the two lionesses and began our ascent of the rise. Luckily the two cats did not attempt to follow or attack us. As far as I know, these are the only two occasions occa-sions on which lions have been seen in this section sec-tion of the country. But all my many encounters have not been so easy as these. On some occasions they have shown fight in a most determined manner. One in particular gave me some very anxious moments. mo-ments. I was out hunting meat and picked up the fresh trail of a lion. I decided to follow and in due course came up with him. He was a fine, unmaned specimen and a full-grown one. I cast envious eyes upon his hide and decided, come what might, to add him to my trophies. Then began a hard stalk. The lion would dash off at a great speed and then disappear in the long grass. ) would follow as fast as I could, and on reaching the spot where I had last seen him. would advance with great caution. Then he would spring out and dash off again. This was repeated several times and it tired me and so I lost patience. I esayed a long shot and hit him.. He disappeared in the long grass with a roar of pain and anger. I advanced carefully, keeping a watchful eye for possible developments. 1 could see and henr where he was. but could not get him to come out iuto the open. 1 knew that it was supreme folly to follow 'him into 'the long grass in fact it was courting certain death 1 decided to burn him out My porters and myself set fire to the long grass and then I stood ready to kill as the big beast dashed for safety Suddenly with a mighty roar he came hounding hound-ing in hug" leaps toward me. I fii-pd straight at his chest and raked him through the entire length of 1 :s body. I fired a second shot and still he rame t although he was mortally wounded. My gun b rer handed ne my s end gun and I fired again quickly, this tim- kn'iiitr h'm. His huge body fell with a crash a!mt.t at. my feet and I was able to breathe acaijj fr,;-ly it naf been a very exciting few m.nutes and a one fi;ne it looked as if the lion might win. The Fkin was ruined as far as being a good tppclmen was concerned, for my shots had Feriously damaged it. However, he made a bully trophy and I wsb quite pleased with the results of my shpot. If had followed him into the long grass I should most certainly have been badly mauled so that I must have died either from shock or from gangrene gan-grene poisoning. Nearly every man. who has died at the hands of a lion has done so as the result of following a wounded lion Into cover foolishly. much ado in getting our ponies to face the unusual un-usual situation. One man rode in close and fired at him with a revolver. The lion was wounded mortally for the second time, but sprang savagely sav-agely at him and seized him by the leg. We were horrified to see the lion drag him off his pony to the ground and rede forward to the rescue. res-cue. We killed the lion- over his body and so saved his life, but unfortunately our efforts were unavailing, for, after living through an agony of torture for a week or more, he died from gangrene gan-grene poisoning. That it the first and only case where the hunters hunt-ers have suffered from this new and invigorating form of sport. It beats pig-sticking as an exciting excit-ing form of sport and is infinitely more enervating enervat-ing than shooting lions by approved methods of hunting. There is something in the wild ride and the attendant risk which is altogether fascinating fasci-nating and irresistible for most men who have once tried this method of lion-hunting. Quite a number of lions have fallen victims in the field as the result of this new plan of attack. at-tack. In fact, the game warden has no less than four lions to his credit from this method of killing kill-ing alone, to say nothing of the numbers which have fallen to his. rifle by the accepted form of slaying. I was in the Sotik councry one day, trailing out to inspect a detachment of my force, who were on outpost duty. I was alone, about an hour's march ahead of my porters and escort and. it being very hot, I decided to sit and rest until my caravan came up with me. I saw a large and shady bush a short distance from my trail and decided that this would be a very suitable spot to rest. I went over to it and threw myself under un-der its welcome shade. Then I took a satisfying satisfy-ing drink from my water-bottle and filled my pipe. I must have sat there for over an hour, smoking and thinking of what I should do when I reached London for my six months' holiday, which was within measurable distance. I thought of no danger and smoked and built castles in the air. In due course my porters hove in sight and as they approached they began to sing lustily. Suddenly from behind me something some-thing big moved. There was an instant's swishing swish-ing of the grass and the cracking of twigs and then, lo and behold, a big black-maned lion bounded bound-ed away from the other side of the bush! I was too astonished to fire and could only stare after it, open-mouthed with astonishment. I do not know to this day what had really happened, but I suspect that the lion had been asleep in the shade on the other side of the bush, as unaware of my presence as I was of his. It was certainly a remarkable experience and a laughable one. although, in all conscience, it might have ended very differently. My native porters and servants were firmly convinced that I had the evil eye and therefore the lion would not attack me. Nothing could shake their faith in my power over the "king of beasts." If I had known of the proximity of this wonderfully fine specimen. speci-men. I should certainly not have sat down and smoked so unconcernedly beside the thorn-bush At Muhoroni station In the Nyando valley, near Lake Victoria, in the latter part of 904 I was taking a stroll out from the camp when the sun had cooled off in the evening I knew that no lions were ever seen in this vicinity and so did not bother to take a gun with me. My sporting sport-ing little fox-terrier, "Micky Doolan." kept me company . I turned my footsteps toward a small stream about a mile and a half from the camp. On arrival ar-rival at the banks of the almost drled up river, I stood for a while watching a young reed buck gamboling with its mother. Micky Doolan chased Imaginary rats with deep content Suddenly the |
