Lion hunter

“ Doctor Rainsford, in his splendid book on lion hunting, describes this thrilling sport in such vivid words that you shiver as you read them. Mounted men gallop after the lion, bring it to bay, and then hold it there until the white hunter comes up to a close range and shoots it. In the meantime the cornered beast is charging savagely at the horsemen, who trust to the speed and quickness of their mounts to elude the angry rushes of the infuriated animal. ”

“ But a lion hunt on fair and open ground, by a tribe of savage warriors, must have been an exciting scene. With them the preparatory tracking up and gathering of information essential to the English hunter are needless; the haunts and habits of the lion they intend to hunt have long been too familiar to them. The hunters with their naked bodies fresh anointed, and lithe and well-turned limbs, assemble around with light assegais or javelins, and with long sticks tufted with black ostrich feathers. ”

“ It may seem very absurd to think of one when speaking of the other, and ludicrous to compare them; but when I sat concealed by the little lily-pond and saw these little animals, musk-rats, rabbits, and even smaller fry, come to the water’s edge, I did think of the great lion-hunter of South Africa, and honestly believe I could realize, even more vividly than when I read his thrilling pages, what he had seen.
Probably no feature of wild life is so characteristic of water-scenes as the tall wading birds, herons, snipe, and sand-pipers. ”

“ At last the lion sits down in the grass, waiting for the game to develop. This is the time for the hunter to dismount and to take his shot. Quite likely he must now stand a charge afoot, and drop his beast before it gets to him.
This is real fun. It has many elements of safety, and many of danger.
To begin with, the hunter at this game generally has companions to back him: often he employs mounted Somalis to round the lion up and get it to stand. The charging lion is quite apt to make for the conspicuous mounted men-who can easily escape-ignoring the hunter afoot. ”

“ These man-eaters have been known to come into a camp, spring upon a man asleep by the side of his companions, drag him into the bushes, and deliberately kill and devour him under protection of the darkness. While the lion, under ordinary circumstances, is not an object of any especial dread on the part of hunters, all have a terror of the man-eater.
"You never know, when you attack a lion, whether he will slink away or turn upon you; and every African hunter can tell stories of narrow escapes. ”

“ Three of the deer-like creatures they had hunted for food broke out of the green wall, fled past the men as if the latter was invisible. And behind them, the hunted now and not the hunter, came a lion, its strikingly marked black-and-white hide dramatic in the light of the morning. It showed fangs in a snarl and then was gone in one huge bound. ”

“ There is more to this, for you are afoot, must generally search out your beast in nearby cover, and can easily find any amount of excitement in the process.
The fourth way is to ride the lion. The hunter sees his quarry returning home across the plains, perhaps; or jumps it from some small bushy ravine. At once he spurs his horse in pursuit. The lion will run but a short distance before coming to a stop, for he is not particularly long either of wind or of patience. From this stand he almost invariably charges. The astute hunter, still mounted, turns and flees. ”

“ One was to kill a lion and the other to live to tell about it. In my estimation all the other animals compared to a lion as latitude eighty-seven and a half compares to the north pole. I wanted to climb out of the Tartarin of Tarascon class of near lion hunters into the ranks of those who are entitled to remark, "Once, when I was in Africa shooting lions," etc. A dead lion is bogey in the big game sport—the score that every hunter dreams of achieving—and I was extremely eager to make the dream a reality. ”

“ It is the function of the hunter to prevent this strategic manœuver by killing the lion before he gets in. If he does not, he is likely to find himself engaged in a spirited hand-to-hand fight with an unfriendly lion in a space about as big as the upper berth of a sleeping-car. ”

“ These two instances are fair examples of the usual method of hunting lions in British East Africa. Riding after them on horseback might be considered a different method than the beating, but as a matter of fact, the two merge into each other. When beating, the lion hunter usually rides until he actually reaches the lion's cover, and if he runs on to a lion in the open he rides after it until the superior speed of the horse over any fair distance forces the lion to stop and lie down at bay. ”

“ Roused by accident, or pressed by the dogs of the hunter, he may cross my path. So, too, may the ocelot and the lynx; or, as I ride silently on, I may chance to view the long, tawny form of the Mexican lion, crouched upon a horizontal limb, and watching for the timid stag that must pass beneath. I turn prudently aside, and leave him to his hungry vigil.
Night brings a change. The beautiful birds—the parrots, the toucans, and the trogons—all go to rest at an early hour; and other winged creatures take possession of the air. Some need not fear the darkness, for their very life is light. ”

“ When he roars, every beast of the forest betakes himself to flight, and even the boldest hunter can scarcely hear it without dismay. Sometimes the most valiant of our youth assemble in bands, arm themselves with arrows and javelins, and go to the chase of these destructive animals. When they have found his retreat, they generally make a circle round, uttering shouts and cries, and clashing their arms, to rouse him to resistance. The lion, meanwhile, looks round upon his assailants with indifference or contempt ”

“ Thus it very frequently happens that a man may search without success for months and months for the whereabouts of a lion, and then, suddenly, when your hunter is least prepared for it, and perhaps unarmed, the monarch of the desert will present himself to his astonished gaze. Notwithstanding the formidable character attributed to the lion, he will rarely attack any man unless previously molested. ”

“ But when white men suddenly invade a well-stocked game-country and disturb its peace by continual shooting, lions gradually grow more and more silent, till it becomes rare to hear one roar at all, though there may still be a good many of them about. The African lion is essentially a wilderness hunter and a game-killer, but when man, whether savage or civilised, encroaches upon his preserves, killing or driving off the game, and bringing in cattle, sheep, and goats in their place, then he preys upon these newly introduced animals and wars with their guardians to the death. ”

“ The lion does not trouble himself about the business of the man on the tree, even if he should happen to see him; and his adversary remains perfectly quiet till between twelve and one. The huntsman is furnished with a sackfull of small stones, and a few sharp spears. When the sand on the ground is burning hot, so that animals even cannot walk about, the hunter begins to pelt the lion with stones, always aiming at his head, and the negroes are very expert marksmen. ”

“ The lion is not so very formidable a beast, after all. I’ve never been troubled by one in my camp, although I have not unfrequently had half a dozen roaring round it at night; but then I have always kept up a good fire, and had men on the watch, ready to shoot the brutes, should they come near ”

“ This hunting of lions by men who were novices at the game was attended by many casualties. I was told that in one year out of about forty visiting sportsmen who devoted themselves seriously to lion hunting, twenty were mauled. Of these twenty, more than half were killed or died from the effects of wounds. The lions of that period were extraordinarily bold and courageous. In the early morning on those huge plains I have walked steadily towards a troop of lions numbering a score. ”

“ THE HUNTER AND THE FARMER
"Are you afraid of a lion? I am not. There is nothing that I should like better than to meet one," said a man to his neighbor whose calf the lion had killed. "To-morrow morning I will go out and hunt for this fierce lion, which is doing so much harm. ”

“ Perhaps most of the instances of this kind would be when the beasts are absolutely suffering from hunger, or when they are exasperated after a chase, or when a lioness is guarding her whelps. It is of great advantage to a hunter, particularly to a novice in the pursuit, to see a lion before the lion sees him, even though it be for ever so short an interval. ”

“ The lion is not hunted as a profession. His spoils are worthless. His skin sells for but little, and he yields no other trophy of any value. As hunting him is attended with great danger, and the hunter, as already stated, may avoid him if he wishes, but few lions would be destroyed, were it not for a certain offensive habit to which they are addicted—that of robbing the vee-boor of his horses and his cattle. ”

“ The most prominent victim of the hunter, in Africa, is the lion. He is usually sought in small parties on horseback with dogs; but sometimes, when one of these formidable animals has been discovered, the people of the neighborhood assemble, and encircle him in a ring, three or four miles in circumference. ”

“ By sticking it in the ground at the right moment, the lion mistakes the clump of ostrich-feathers for his real assailant, and, charging upon it, permits the hunter to escape. Such a ruse is far inferior to the trick of the carapace, but that singular mode of defence against the lion was only practised by such cunning hunters as Congo. ”

“ The river-drift hunter, armed with his roughly chipped stone implements, doubtless had great difficulty in making good his place in the struggle for existence among the beasts of prey then in the valley of the Thames, and sometimes, when he had the chance, he would be likely to eat the lion, and at other times the lion would certainly eat him. They must often have come into contact when engaged in the pursuit of the same animals. ”

“ As I have said, these people sometimes go in pursuit of the lion, and when a party of hunters meet one, they go near to him, and as he springs on one of them, the hunter quickly plants the handle of the staff in the ground and retreats. The fierce lion leaps upon the staff and rends the ostrich feathers in pieces. While he is thus engaged, the other hunters come suddenly upon him from behind, and despatch him with their daggers. ”

“ The aggageers were equally annoyed, and they explained that they should have been certain to kill him. Their plan was to ride upon either flank, at a few yards' distance, when he would have charged one man, who would have dashed away, while the other hunter would have slashed the lion through the back with his sword. They declared that a good hunter should be able to protect himself by a back-handed blow with his sword, should the lion attack the horse from behind ”

“ Be this as it may, man-eaters occur; and on my fourth hunting expedition, a horrible tragedy was acted one dark night in my little lonely camp by one of these formidable characters, which deprived me, in the far wilderness, of my most valuable servant. In winding up these few observations on the lion, which I trust will not have been tiresome to the reader, I may remark that lion-hunting, under any circumstances, is decidedly a dangerous pursuit. ”

“ Although often engaged in hunting big game, I never saw a mountain lion at large 48 except when one has been rounded up by a pack of dogs. In their habits they are stealthy and secretive, carefully keeping concealed, and never willing to fight unless cornered, with no chance of escape. Occasionally, when the odds are overwhelmingly in its favor, a lion will provoke a battle, but this is not often the case. ”

“ My whole life had been passed in wild sports from early manhood, and I had imagined that I understood as much as most people of this subject; but here were men who, without the aid of the best rifles and deadly projectiles, went straight at their game, and faced the lion in his den with shield and sabre. There is a freemasonry among hunters, and my heart was drawn towards these aggageers. ”

“ The sportsman sees lions on the plains. Likewise the lions see him, and promptly depart to thick cover or rocky butte. He comes on them in the scrub; they bound hastily out of sight. He may even meet them face to face, but instead of attacking him, they turn to right and left and make off in the long grass. When he follows them, they sneak cunningly away. If, added to this, he has the good luck to kill one or two stone dead at a single shot each, he begins to think there is not much in lion shooting after all, and goes home proclaiming the king of beasts a skulking coward. ”

“ For many years, off and on, we have hunted lions, but sad to say, we have done more hunting than finding. They are a very wary creature. Practically, one never sees them unless hunting with dogs; they may be in the brush within thirty yards, but the human eye will fail to discern them.
Our camps have been robbed by lions, our horses killed by them, cattle and sheep ruthlessly murdered; lion tracks have been all about, and yet unless trapped or treed by dogs, we have never met. ”