Lion hunting

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is no joke to have a pack run for miles after the wrong game over rough country, your whole day’s sport broken up, and perhaps lose your dogs for several days.
The mountain lion has not much endurance in the chase, although very fast for a short distance, which he covers by a series of leaps. In a short time he is treed or driven to the ledge of a precipice or into some hiding place. If you are fond of hunting with a camera, you generally have ample time to take a photograph of your prize, perhaps posing in the 51 branches of a tree and looking as pleasant as possible—for a mountain lion! ”

“ 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. ”

“ LION HUNTING. A lion is represented by one scout who goes out with tracking irons on his feet, and a pocketful of corn or peas, and six tennis balls. He is allowed half an hour's start, and then the patrol go after him, following his spoor, each armed with one tennis ball with which to shoot him, when they find him. The lion may hide or creep about or run just as he feels inclined, but whenever the ground is hard or very grassy, he must drop a few grains of corn, every few yards to show the trail. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Where the country has been much hunted, however, the lion learns to abandon his kill and seek shelter before daylight, and is almost never seen abroad. Then one must depend on happening upon him in his cover.
In the actual hunting of his game the lion is apparently very clever. He understands the value of cooperation. Two or more will manoeuvre very skilfully to give a third the chance to make an effective spring; whereupon the three will share the kill. ”

“ But, speaking generally, they do not do so, though doubtless should antelopes or other [Pg 20] animals unconsciously feed close up to where a lion happened to be lying resting and waiting for night before commencing active hunting, he would very likely make a rush and try and seize one of them if he could. Upon two occasions I have had my bullocks attacked in the middle of the day, once by a single lioness, and on the other occasion by a party of four lions, two lions and two lionesses. But how many old hunters have seen lions actually hunting in the full light of day? ”

“ An animal could glide through these channels, but a man must batter his way through the stockade of dense grass that spread out above.
It was in this place that the lion was first heard and the beaters refused to follow it in. Guttural grunts and snarls came from that uninviting jungle, and we knew that the only way to force the lion out was to go in and drive it out. ”

“ That is what makes lion hunting delightful. There are some regions, very near settlements, where it is perhaps justifiable to poison these beasts. If you are a true sportsman you will confine your hound-hunting to those districts. Elsewhere, as far as playing fair with a noble beast is concerned, you may as well toss a coin to see which you shall take-your pack or a strychnine bottle. ”

“ Lion hunting has been held a royal sport in all times, with the result that the Lion has been exterminated in many parts of its natural habitat and forced back into the wilder parts of desert and plain. Unlike the tiger, the Lion is rarely found in forests, and is unable to climb trees. He is ordinarily stalked in the daytime, when, with stomach full, he sleeps among rocks and bushes, or shot from stands as he approaches some water hole or carcass by night. ”

“ The lion is never specially sought for by the natives of Central Africa, but should he be met with in their ordinary hunting expeditions, he takes his chance like all other animals, and is attacked either with arrows or the spear. ”

“ The lively serenade furnished by the dogs, which the lion recognizes by continual growls, displaying his whole set of ivories, completes a scene not soon forgotten. Your share of the business is very tame, although absolutely effective. A shot at close range behind the shoulder, and the lion tumbles among the savage dogs to engage in a losing fight ”

“ A loud growl answered the report of my rifle, and I could see the white salt of the plain fly as the lion ran round and round in a circle, like a kitten after its tail. I fired my second barrel and the lion disappeared. The wildbeest had made off at the first shot. I tried, in the eagerness of youth, to follow the lion in the bush; but soon common sense came to my rescue, and warned me that in this dark growth the chances were decidedly in favor of the lion's getting me, and so gave up the chase. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Formerly, when there were more lions to be seen there than at present, and when, at the same time, the settlers were inexperienced in lion-hunting, large numbers of hunters used to go in chase of the lion, whom they would endeavor to entice into the plain, and round whom they used to form a circle. ”

“ Hunting a lion with dogs involves very little danger as compared with hunting the Indian tiger, because the dogs bring him out of cover and make him stand at bay, giving the hunter plenty of time for a good deliberate shot.
Where game is abundant, there you may expect lions in proportionately large numbers. They are never seen in herds, but six or eight, probably one family, occasionally hunt together. One is in much more danger of being run over when walking in the streets of London, than he is of being devoured by lions in Africa, unless engaged in hunting the animal. ”

“ The hunters now felt secure. They had kindled a large fire on each side of the kraal, though they knew that this will not always keep lions off. But they trusted to their guns; and as they would sleep inside the canvass tents of their wagons, closing both “voor” and “achter-claps,” they had nothing to fear. It would be a hungry lion, indeed, that would have attempted to break the strong kraal they had made; and no lion, however hungry, would ever think of charging into a wagon. ”

“ When a lion charges, it does not come on in great leaps, nor does it strike its adversary a crushing blow with its paw. It comes along close to the ground like a great dog and bites, often so low that its forefeet can hardly be off the ground. Two Boer hunters of my acquaintance were both of them first bitten in the thigh. Shortly after the opening up of Mashunaland, too, an Englishman and a Dane were both seized in the same way by charging lions when hunting near the Pungwe river, in Portuguese East Africa, the latter dying from his wounds. ”

“ The traveller may, of course, meet a lion on the road by broad daylight; but many experienced hunters, who count their slain lions by the dozen, will tell you they were years in the country before they ever saw the kings of beasts, and these are men who do not belittle the danger incurred in hunting them. ”

“ Sir Samuel Baker, a great hunter and explorer, who was an authority on matters relating to the dark continent stated his belief that within a century not a lion would be left alive outside the zoological gardens, for the killing is going on far too rapidly to allow a single specimen to be left. The building of railways makes it easy for man to reach the hunting grounds where before it was very difficult.
Children often ask "which is stronger, the lion or tiger?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The shot brought all the men from the camp, and great was the rejoicing at the engineer's success. It took the latter some time, however, to remember where he was; for no man can be kocked down by a lion and go unscathed. When daylight came, he found the shoulder of his coat torn and a claw mark on the stock of his rifle, as neat as if it had been chiseled out. This served ever after to remind him of his first lion hunt.
The lioness gives birth to quite a large family, often six and seven cubs at one time. When they are big enough the mother takes them out with her and are taught to hunt. ”

“ It is almost impossible to trap a lion, for it will never enter any cage to secure a bait no matter how hungry it is; nor will it cross pitfalls, and no steel trap was ever made that will hold an enraged lion. In fact, among animals the lion's sight and smell are excellent, and that is saying a good deal. ”

“ A yet more dangerous sport than hunting the lion himself, is hunting a lion's cubs. There are individuals, however, adventurous enough to undertake even this hazardous enterprise. Every day, about three or four in the afternoon, the lion and lioness quit their lair to make a distant reconnaissance, with the object, no doubt, of procuring food for their litter. ”

“ Since the white man started in to settle up the country the haunts of the lion have been invaded and the "King of Beasts" has been driven away or killed off. In fact, in certain regions or recently settled Uganda and Mashonaland, in tropical Africa the lion has entirely disappeared within eighteen months of the white man's coming. ”

“ The frontier boors in particular, who are more exposed to his ravages, and who, being well trained to hunting, are most of them excellent marksmen, appear to take a peculiar pleasure in attacking the Lion, even when they [22] meet him almost singly. They, however, more frequently make up parties for the chase, which is unquestionably attended with no little danger, even when the huntsmen are numerous and experienced; for although the Lion on such occasions almost always takes to his heels, and endeavours to make his escape without confronting his pursuers ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”