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Show - v zzzzzzz A Soldier's Big Game Hunting By Lieut.-Gen. R. S. S. Baden-Powell, Baden-Powell, F. R. G. S. Through all the world the name of Baden Powell, soldier and scientist, scien-tist, is celebrated and but few people know that he has the ability to shine by right of his pen and brush as well. The hero of Mafeking and a dozen other campaigns filled in the gaps between military engagements with hunting and this "Sport in War" contains some dramatic adventures ad-ventures sprinkled with bits of rare humor and caustic comment. A most unusual feature is the reckless way in which, he hunted with military arms instead of the customary weapons weap-ons for big game. ii'ZMT "AT kl1"' 1,1 '"" have out there?" is the question with which men have, as a rule, greeted one on return from the campaign in Rhodesia; Rhode-sia; and one could truthfully say, "We had excellent sport." I am about when the nine arose and yawned and stretched their massive jaws and limbs, the patrol, remembering the old maxim concerning the relations between discretion and . valor, changed the course of their advance and took another line. One time, when 1 was patrolling the bank of the Shangani river with three men, the massive form of a lion was seen slowly moving over the boulders of the river-bed. The corporal cor-poral and I jumped off our horses in a moment, and fired a volley a deux, at about 180 yards. One shot thudded into him, the other striking the ground just under his belly. He sprang with a light bound over a rock and disappeared from our view. Posting one man on a high point on the bank to watch the river-bed and leaving the other in charge of our horses, the corporal and I made our way down to where we had last seen the lion. We were armed with Lee-Metford carbines and we turned on our magazines in order to have a good running fire available should our quarry demand It. Meantime our main body, coming along the opposite bank of the river, had seen our maneuver, and an officer offi-cer and one man had come down into the riverbed from their side to help us. Gradually and cautiously we surrounded sur-rounded the spot where we guessed the lion' to be cautiously, at least, as far as three of us were concerned ; the fourth, the man who had come from the main body, was moving in a far freer and more confident manner than any of us could boast; he clambered clam-bered over the rocks and sprang with agility into the most likely corners for finding a wounded lion lying ambushed, am-bushed, and his sole weapon was his revolver for he was a farrier. Such is Tommy Atkins;' whether it is the outcome of sheer pluck, or of ignorance, ignor-ance, or of both combined, the fact remains that he will sail gayly in where danger lies, and as often as not sail gayly out again unharmed. However, to continue; at last we (as otherwise they would not be occupying oc-cupying this hill). "However, they could not see any thing of us, as it was then quite dark And we went farther on among the mountains. In the early morning light we crossed the deep river-bed of the Umchingwe River, and, in doing do-ing so, noticed the fresh spoor of a lion in the sand. We went on and had a good look at the enemy's stronghold; and on our way back, as we approached ap-proached this river-bed. agreed to go quietly, in case the lion should be moving about in it. On looking down over the bank, my heart jumped into my mouth when I saw a grand old brute just walking in behind a bush. Jackson did not see him, but was off his horse as quickly as I was, and ready with his gun: too ready, indeed, for the moment that the lion appeared, walking majestically out from behind the bush that had hidden him, Jackson Jack-son fired hurriedly, striking the ground under his foot, and, as we afterwards discovered, knocking off one of his claws. "The lion tossed up his shaggy head and looked at us in dignified surprise. Then I fired and hit him with a leaden bullet from the Lee-Metford. He reeled, sprang round, and staggered a few paces, when Jackson, who was using a Martini-Henry, let him have one in the shoulder. This knocked him over sideways, and he turned about, growling savagely. "I could scarcely believe that we had got a lion at last, but resolved to make sure of it; so, telling Jackson not to fire unless it was necessary (for fear of spoiling the skin with the larger bullet of the Martini), I went down closer to the beast and fired a shot at the back of his neck as he turned his head momentarily away from me. The bullet went through his spine and came out through the lower jaw, killing him. ' "We were pretty delighted at our success, but our nigger was mad with happiness, for a dead lion provided he is not a man-eater has many invaluable in-valuable gifts for a Kaffir, in the shape of love-philtres, charms against disease dis-ease or injury, and medicines that produce bravery. It was quite de-ligbtfu de-ligbtfu 1 to shake hands with the mighty paws of the dead lion, to pull at his magnificent tawny mane, and to look into his great deep, yellow eyes. Then we set to work to skin him; two of us skinning while the other kept watch in case of the enemy sneaking up to catch us while we were thus occupied. We found that he was fat, and also that he had been much wounded by porcupines, portions of whose quills had pierced the skin, and lodged in his flesh in several places. Our nigger cut out the eyes, gall-bladder, and various bits of the lion's anatomy, as fetich medicine. I filled my carbine-bucket with some of the fat, as I knew my two 'boys,' Diamond and M'tini, would very greatly value it. Then, after hiding the head in a neighboring bush where we could find it again, we packed the skin on to one of the ponies and returned to camp mightily pleased with ourselves." our-selves." By permission erf, Longmajis, Green & Co., New York. (Copyright, 1909, by Benj. B. Hampton.) THE LION TOSSED UP HIS SHAGGY HEAD. to tell of facing lions with a small caliber military rifle, an adventure to thrill army sportsman. In the first place, scouting played a very prominent part in the preliminaries prelimin-aries to major operations. This scouting, to be successful, necessitated ne-cessitated one's going with the very slenderest escort frequently with one man only, to look after the horses, and for long distances away from our main body, into the districts occupied by the enemy and by big game. Thus, one was thrown entirely on one's own resources, with the stimulating knowledge knowl-edge that if he did not maintain a sufficient suf-ficient alertness of observation and action, he stood a very good chance, indeed, not only of failing to gain information in-formation which you were desired to seek, but also of getting himself wiped out, and left in stress on the veldt. "Spooring." or tracking, was our main source of guidance and information informa-tion and night the cover under which we were able to make our way about the enemy's country with impunity. The pleasures of the pursuit of game were all the more enhanced by , the knowledge that the meat was really necessary to us, and especially by the fact that we often carried out our sport at the risk of being ourselves our-selves the quarry of some sneaking band of rebel warriors. Dangers of Camping in the Lion Country. Moreover, to all our fun a seasoning was added in the shape of lions, whose presence or propinquity was very frequently fre-quently impressed upon us at nights by deep-toned grunts or ghostly apparitions ap-paritions within the halo of our watch-fires. watch-fires. In defiance of the rules of war which forbid the use of fires by night, as guiding an enemy's night attackwe at-tackwe had a ring of bright fires burning round our bivouac to scare away the lions. By day we saw them. too. One patrol. pa-trol. Indeed, came upon a group of nine lying dozing in the bush; and were on the spot, but no lion was there an occasional splash of blood, and here and there, where sand lay between the rocks, the impress of a mighty paw showed that he had moved away after being hit. But soon all traces ceased, and though we searched for long we could find no other sign of him. Outwitted by the jungle King We halted on the river-bank during the intense heat of the day, and before be-fore resuming our march in the evening even-ing we sallied out once more to search the river-bed and an islet grown with bushes, where we hoped he might be. And while we searched the hussar, wrho had been assigned to me to hold my horse, and who was the man who, in the morning, had been posted to watch the river-bed, asked: "How many lions are there supposed to be here?" I told him "Only the one we fired at this morning." Whereupon he grimly said, "Oh, I saw him go away up the river when you went down it. He was a dragging his hindquarters after him." It appeared that the man thought he had been posted to guard against surprise by an enemy, and did not realize that we, being down among the rocks, could not see the lion which was so visible from his lookout place. And so we lost that lion. But I had better luck another time. It stands thus recorded in my diary: "10th October. (To be marked with j a red mark when I can get a red pencil.) pen-cil.) Jackson and a native boy' ac-I ac-I companied me scouting this morning; we three started off at 3 a. m. In moving round the hill that overlooks our camp we saw a match struck high up near the top of the mountain. This one little spark told us a good deal. It showed that the enemy were there: that they were awake and alert (I say 'they.' because one nigger would not dare to be up there by himself in the dark): and they were aware of our force being at Posselt's |
