sits up, turned right in my direction. Now there is no going either
forwards or backwards for me. The grass encumbers my legs--the old
growth (spared by the great fires that sometimes ravage the whole
velt between two rainy seasons) mingling with the new into an
inextricable tangle. Such moments are full of excitement. It is quite
on the cards that a second rhinoceros--perhaps a third--will now turn
up. Who knows? Moreover, I have absolutely no inducement to bag the
specimen now before my eyes--its horns are not of much account. I try
cautiously to retreat, but my feet are entangled and I slip. Instantly
I jump up again--the rhinoceros has heard the noise of my fall and is
making a rush for me, spitting and snorting. It won’t be easy to hit
him effectively, but I fire. As my rifle rings out I hear suddenly
the singing notes like a bird in the air above, clear and resonant,
and I seem to note the impact of the bullet. Next instant I see the
rhinoceros disappearing over the undulating plain.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
RHINOCEROSES OFTEN REMAIN IN THIS SITTING POSTURE FOR QUITE A LONG
TIME.]
I conclude that the bullet must have struck one of his horns and been
turned aside, and that it startled the beast and caused him to abandon
his attack.
* * * * *
But there are yet other ways in which you may be surprised by a
rhinoceros. I had pitched my camp by the Pangani, in a region which at
the time of Count Telekis’ expedition, some years before, was a swamp.
Its swampy condition lasts only during the rainy season, but I found
my camping-place to be very unsatisfactory and unhealthy. I set out
therefore with a few of my men to find a better position somewhere on
dryer land, if possible shaded by trees, and at a spot where the river
was passable--a good deal to ask for in the African bush. For hours we
pursued our search through “boga” and “pori,” but the marshy ground did
not even enable us to get down to the river-side. Endless morasses of
reeds enfolded us, in whose miry depths the foot sinks even in the dry
weather, in which the sultry heat enervates us, shut in as we are by
the rank growth that meets above our heads as we grope through it. At
last we reach some solid earth, and it looks as though here, beneath
some sycamores, we have found a better camping place. Deep-trodden
paths lead down to the waterside. We follow them through the brushwood,
I leading the way, and thus reach the stream. The rush and roar of the
river resounds in our ears, and we catch the notes, too, of birds.
Suddenly, right in front of me, the ground seems to quicken into life.
My first notion is that it must be a gigantic crocodile; but no, it is
a rhinoceros which has just been bathing, and which now, disturbed,
is glancing in our direction and about to attack us or take to its
heels--who can say? Escape seems impossible. Clasping my rifle I
plunge back into the dense brushwood. But the tough viscous branches
project me forward again. Now for it. The rhinoceros is “coming for”
us. We tumble about in all directions. Some seconds later we exchange
stupefied glances. The animal has fled past us, just grazing us and
bespattering us with mud, and has disappeared from sight. How small we
felt at that moment I cannot express! In such moments you experience
the same kind of sensation as when your horse throws you or you are
knocked over by a motorcar. (Perhaps this latter simile comes home to
one best nowadays!) You realise, too, why the native hunters throw off
all their clothing when they are after big game. On such occasions
even the lightest covering hampers you, and perhaps endangers your life.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A ROCK-POOL ON KILIMANJARO.]
* * * * *
Countless thousands of two-horned rhinoceroses are still to the good in
East Africa. Yes, countless thousands! Captain Schlobach tells us that
he would encounter as many as thirty in one day in Karragwe in 1903
and 1904. Countless also are the numbers of horns which are secured
annually for sale on the coast. But how much longer will this state of
things continue? And the specimens of the white rhinoceros of South
Africa which adorn the museum in Cape Town and the private museum of
Mr. W. Rothschild (and which we owe to Coryndon and Varndell) are not
more valuable than the specimens also to be found in the museums of the
“black” rhinoceroses still extant in East Africa.
This view of the matter will perhaps receive attention fifty or a
hundred years hence.
[Illustration: MASAI KILLING A HYENA WITH THEIR CLUBS.]
XI
The Capturing of a Lion
Simba Station--Lion Station--is the name of a place on the Uganda
Railway, which connects the Indian Ocean with the Victoria-Nyanza. It
is situated near Nairobi, and the sound of its name recalls vividly to
my memory January 25, 1897, the great day when I came face to face with
three lions.
At that time no iron road led to the interior of the country; there
were neither railway lines nor telegraph wires to vibrate to the sound
of the voice of the monarch of the wilderness. But the white man was
soon to bar his path by day and night along the whole length of the
great railroad from lake to ocean.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
IN A BETTER TEMPER.]
[Illustration: A LION CUB IN A BAD TEMPER.]
“Lion Station” deserves its name, for in the vicinity of this spot over
a hundred Indian workmen have been seized by lions. To me this was no
surprise, for years before I had visited the region, and had done
full justice to its wilderness in my description of it. Some stir was
caused when a lion killed a European in one of the sleeping-cars at
night-time. In company with two others, the unfortunate man was passing
the night in a saloon carriage which had been shunted on to a siding.
One of the Europeans slept on the floor; as a precaution against
mosquitoes he had covered himself with a cloth. Another was lying on a
raised bunk. The lion seized the third man, who was sleeping near the
two others on a camp-bed, killed him, and carried him away. One of the
survivors, Herr Hübner--whose hunting-box, “Kibwezi,” in British East
Africa, has given many sportsmen an opportunity of becoming acquainted
with African game--gave me the following account of the incident: “The
situation was a critical one. The door through which the beast had
entered the compartment was rolled back. I saw the creature at about
an arm’s length from me, standing with its fore-paws on the bed of my
sleeping friend. Then a sudden snatch, followed by a sharp cry, told
me that all was over. The lion’s right paw had fallen on my friend’s
left temple, and its teeth were buried deep in his left breast near the
armpit. For the next two minutes a deathly stillness reigned. Then the
lion pulled the body from off the bed and laid it on the ground.” The
lion disappeared with the corpse into the darkness of the night. It was
killed shortly after, as might be expected.
Such scenes were probably more frequent in earlier days, when, in
the Orange Free State, a single hunter would kill five-and-twenty
lions. This was so even down to the year 1863, when impallah antelopes
(_Æpyceros suara_) had already become very rare in Bechuanaland, and in
Natal a keen control had to be instituted over the use of arms. Times
have changed. In the year 1899 much sensation was aroused by the fact
that a lion was killed near Johannesburg, and so far back as 1883 there
was quite a to-do over a lion that was seen and killed at Uppington, on
the Orange River. To Oswald and Vardon, well-known English hunters, as
well as to Moffat in Bechuanaland, the encountering of as many as nine
troops of lions in a day was quite an ordinary experience, and I still
found lions in surprising numbers in 1896 in German and British East
Africa. The practical records of the Anglo-German Boundary Commission
in East Africa, the observations made lately by Duke Adolf Friedrich of
Mecklenburg, and the evidence of many other trustworthy witnesses, have
confirmed these facts.
Although I do not think that lions, at least in districts where game is
very plentiful, are so dangerous as some would make out, yet I quite
agree with the statement made by H. A. Bryden that a lion-hunt made on
foot must be reckoned as one of the most dangerous sports there are.
The experience of an authority like Selous, who was seized by lions
during the night in the jungle, proves this.
In the region in which I had such success lion-hunting in 1897, there
were many mishaps. My friend the commandant of Port Smith in Kiku
uland, who was badly mauled by lions, has since had more than one
fellow-sufferer in this respect.
Captain Chauncy Hugh-Stegand, who, like Mr. Hall and so many other
hunters of other nationalities, had been several times injured by
rhinoceroses, was once within an ace of being killed by a lion which
he encountered by night, and which he shot at and pursued. Severely
wounded, and cured almost by a miracle, he had to return to England to
regain his health. “Such are the casualties of sportsmen in Central and
East Africa” is the dry comment of Sir Harry Johnston in his preface to
the English edition of my book _With Flashlight and Rifle_.
When I read about such adventures I call to mind vividly my own. I live
through them all again, and the magic of these experiences reawakes in
me.
To-day I would fain give the reader some account of the capturing of
lions. Not of captures made by means of a net, such as skilful and
brave men used in olden days to throw over the king of beasts, thus
disabling him and putting him in their power, but of a capture that was
not without its many intense and exciting moments.
Proud Rome saw as many as five hundred lions die in the arena in one
day. That was in the time of Pompey. Nearly two thousand years have
passed since then, and one may safely affirm that in the intervening
centuries very few lions have been brought to Europe that were caught
when full grown in the desert. The many lions that are brought over
to our continent are caught when young, and then reared, despite the
credence given sometimes to statements to the contrary.
It goes without saying that lions which have matured in confinement
cannot compare with the lions that have come to their full development
in the wilderness. Full-grown tigers and leopards are still nowadays
in some cases ensnared alive, and we can see them in our zoological
gardens in all their native wildness, and without any artificial
breeding, marked with the unmistakable stamp common to all wild
animals. It is an established fact that all captive monkeys show
symptoms after a certain time of rachitis. This is also the case
frequently with large felines. Lions brought up in captivity, however,
have far finer manes than wild ones.
Of course a certain number of the lions used in the arena-fights in
Rome were probably reared in the Roman provinces by some potentate. But
without doubt a large number were caught when fully grown by means of
nets, pitfalls, and other devices of which we have no precise details.
It seemed to me worth while to make a trial of the means which had once
been so successful. As I have already pointed out, there is a great
difference between a man who scours the wilderness solely as a hunter,
and one who makes practical investigations into the life of the animal
world. The sportsman may possibly sneer at the use of pitfalls. He
has no mind for anything but an exciting encounter with the lion, an
encounter which, thanks to modern means of warfare, is much easier for
the man than formerly.
[Illustration:
ANOTHER OF MY HUNTING CARDS. THE RECORD OF MY LION-HUNT OF THE
25TH JANUARY, 1897, ON THE ATHI PLAINS, WHEN I KILLED TWO LIONS
AND A LIONESS (“LÖWE”=LION; LÖWIN=LIONESS).]
However, I have no wish whatever to lay down the law on this question
of the relative amount of danger involved in the shooting or the
trapping of lions. In many parts of Africa lion-hunting is a matter
of luck, above all where horses cannot live owing to the tsetse-fly,
and where dogs cannot be employed in large numbers (as used to be the
practice in South Africa) to mark down the lions until the hunter can
come. For example, we have it on good authority that the members of an
Anglo-Abyssinian Border Commission, aided by a pack of dogs, were able
to kill about twenty lions in the course of a year. But on entering
the region of Lake Rudolf all the dogs fall victims to the tsetse-fly.
Hunting with a pack of dogs is very successful. Dogs were used by the
three brothers Chudiakow, who, some nine years ago, near Nikolsk on
the Amur, in Manchuria, killed nearly forty Siberian tigers in one
winter[6]; whilst a hunting party near Vladivostock killed in one month
one hundred and twenty-five wild boars and seven tigers. Tigers are
so plentiful near Mount Ararat that a military guard of three men is
necessary during the night-watch to ward off these beasts of prey.[7]
My extraordinary luck on January 25, 1897, when I killed three
full-grown lions, fine big specimens, was of course a source of much
satisfaction to me. The little sketch-map of the day’s hunt which
accompanies this chapter shows the route I took on that memorable
occasion, and gives a good idea of the way in which I am accustomed to
keep a record of such things in my diary. I must add that my adventures
and narrow escapes while trying to secure lions have been of a kind
such as would be to the taste only of those most greedy of excitement.
In 1897 I had already observed that the lion was to be found in
great troops in thinly populated neighbourhoods, where he was at no
loss for prey and where he had not much to fear from man. As many
as thirty lions have been found together, and I myself have seen a
troop of fourteen with my own eyes. Other sportsmen have seen still
larger troops in East Africa. Quite recently Duke Adolf Friedrich of
Mecklenburg, who, on the occasion of his second African trip, made some
interesting observations in regard to lions, has borne witness to the
existence of very large troops. During the period in which I devoted
myself entirely to making photographic studies of wild life, and
consequently left undisturbed all the different species of game which
swarmed around my camp, I was sometimes surrounded for days, weeks
even, by great numbers of them, sometimes to an alarming extent. I have
already described how one night an old lion brushed close by my tent to
drink at the brook near which we were encamping, although it was just
as easy for him to drink from the same stream at any point for miles
to either side of us. On another occasion, as could be seen from the
tracks, lions approached our camp until within a few yards of it. When
I was photographing the lions falling upon the heifers and donkeys, as
described in _With Flashlight and Rifle_, I must have been, judging
by the tracks, surrounded by about thirty. I trapped a number of them,
either for our various museums, where specimens in various stages of
development and age are much needed, or to protect the natives who were
menaced by lions, or whose relatives had perhaps been seized by them.
[Illustration: AT BAY.]
It is the more necessary to have recourse to traps in that one may
spend years hunting in Equatorial East Africa without getting a single
chance of firing a shot at a lion. The hunt has to take place at night,
for the lion leads a nocturnal life, and makes off into inaccessible
thickets by day.
But what I was most anxious to do was to secure a specimen or two that
I could bring alive to Europe. To do this, I required the lightest
possible and most portable iron cages, which should yet be strong
enough to resist every effort of the imprisoned animals to get free.
This problem was solved for me as well as it could be by Professor
Heck, the Director of the Berlin Zoological Gardens. Yet even he
declared it to be impossible to make such cages under 330 lbs. in
weight. For the transport of one such cage the services of six bearers
would be necessary. I arranged for several such cages to be sent
oversea to Tanga, and took them thence into the interior. Thus I had
the assurance of keeping my captives in security, but first I had to
get hold of them without hurting them. By means of a modified form
of iron traps I was able to manage this eventually. Those who are
not acquainted with the difficulties of transport in countries where
everything has to be borne on men’s shoulders will hardly be able to
realise the straits to which one may be put. Thus I was much hampered,
when carrying back my first lion (which was unharmed save for a few
skin scratches), by a lack of bearers owing to famine and other causes.
[Illustration: STUDIES OF A TRAPPED LION AT CLOSE QUARTERS.]
I had found the tracks of a lioness with three quite little cubs. I
followed them for an hour over the velt--they then got lost in the
thick bush. As I had already observed the tracks of this little band
for several days, I naturally concluded that the old lioness was making
a stay in the neighbourhood. So I decided, as one of my heifers was
ill from the tsetse sickness and bound to die, to pitch my tent in the
neighbourhood and to bait a trap with the sick animal.
I found water at about an hour and a half’s distance from the spot
where I had observed the lion’s tracks. I was thus obliged to encamp
at this distance away. Later on in the evening, after much labour, I
succeeded in setting a trap in such a way that I had every reason to
hope for good results.
In the early hours of the following morning I started out, full of
hope, to visit my trap. Already in the distance I could see that my
heifer was still alive, and I immediately concluded that the lions had
sought the open. But it was not so, for to my surprise I presently
found fresh tracks of the old lioness and her cubs. Evidently she had
visited the trap, but had returned into the bush without taking any
notice of the easy prey. The lie of the land allowed me to read the
lion’s tracks imprinted into the ground as if in a book. They told
me that the cubs had at one point suddenly darted to one side, their
curiosity excited by a land-tortoise whose back was now reflecting the
rays of the sun, and which in the moonlight must have attracted their
attention. They had evidently amused themselves for a while with this
plaything, for the hard surface of the tortoise’s shell was marked with
their claws. Then they had returned to their mother. I concluded that
the old lioness was not hungry and had no more lust for prey--another
confirmation of the fact that lions, when sated, are not destructive.
This new proof seemed to me to be worth all the trouble I had taken.
The two following nights, to my disappointment, the lions approached my
heifer again without molesting it.
This was the more annoying because I had hoped by capturing the old
lioness to obtain possession of all the young cubs as well.
In this case, as in many others, the behaviour of the heifer was a
matter of great interest. As already remarked, in most cases I made use
of sick cows mortally afflicted by the tsetse-fly. In many districts in
German East Africa the tsetse-fly, which causes the dreadful sleeping
sickness in man, also makes it impossible to keep cattle except under
quite special conditions. This heifer, then, was already doomed to
a painful death through the tsetse illness, and the fate I provided
for it was more merciful, for the lion kills its prey by one single
powerful bite. I observed, moreover, that the bound animal took its
food quite placidly and showed no signs of unrest so long as the lion
came up to her peaceably, as in this case. This accorded entirely
with my frequent observations of the behaviour of animals towards
lions on the open velt. Antelopes out on the velt apparently take
very little notice of lions, though they hold themselves at a
respectful distance from them.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
THIS LION, AN OLD ANIMAL WITH A FINE MANE, HAD DRAGGED AWAY THE
IRON TRAP SOME DISTANCE. HE MADE FOR ME THE MOMENT I HAD TAKEN
THIS PHOTOGRAPH AT NEAR RANGE, BUT THE TRAP IMPEDED HIS MOVEMENTS
AND A WELL-PLACED BULLET PUT AN END TO HIM.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
CARRYING IN TRIUMPH TO MY CAMP A LION WHICH I HOPED TO BRING BACK WITH
ME TO EUROPE.]
In spite of my want of success, I decided to try my luck once more,
though the surroundings of my camp were not very alluring and game was
very scarce with the exception of a herd of ostriches, which for hours
together haunted the vicinity. I hoped this time the lioness would be
bagged. But no, I never came across her or her young again.
Instead, on the fourth morning, I found a good maned specimen--an old
male--at my mercy. Loud roars announced the fact of his capture to me
from afar. The first thing was to discover whether he was firmly held
by the iron, and also whether he was unhurt. I assured myself of both
these points after some time, with great trouble and difficulty, and,
needless to add, not without considerable danger. I leave the reader to
imagine for himself the state of mind in which one approaches the King
of Beasts in such circumstances. I can vouch for it that one does so
with a certain amount of respect for His Majesty.
The roaring of an enraged lion, once heard, is never to be forgotten.
It is kept up by my captive without intermission, a dull heavy rumble
suddenly swelling to a tremendous volume of sound. The expression
of its face and head, too, show fierce anger and threaten danger.
The terrible jaws now scrunch the branches within reach, now open
menacingly.
It was now necessary to free the lion from the trap and to bring it
into camp. It would take a week to get my cage, but meanwhile I
decided to fasten the animal by means of a strong chain and with a
triple yoke specially made for such a purpose in Europe.
But even the bravest of my men absolutely refused to obey my command.
It needed the greatest persistence to persuade some of them, at last,
to lend a helping hand to me and my assistant Orgeich. As usual they
required the stimulus of a good example. After some time I had, as can
be seen on pages 485 and 499, set up my photographic apparatus right in
front of the lion so as to take several photos of him at the distance
of a few paces.
[Illustration: A CAPTURED LIONESS, SNAPSHOTTED AT THE VERY MOMENT OF
BEING TRAPPED.]
Then we cut a few saplings about as thick as one’s arm, and with these
we tried to beat down the lion so as to secure him. At first this
did not succeed at all. I then had recourse to strong cord, which I
made into a lasso. It was wonderful, when I caught the head of the
prisoner in the noose, to see him grip it with his teeth and to watch
the thick rope fall to pieces as if cut with a pair of scissors after
a few quick, angry bites. During this trial I made a false step on the
smooth, grassy ground, so well known to African explorers, and was
within a hair’s breadth of falling into the clutches of the raging
beast had not my good taxidermist happily dragged me back. After
various further efforts, during which my people were constantly taking
fright, I at length succeeded in fastening the head as well as the paws
of the beast. With the help of the branches the body was laid prostrate
on the ground, a gag was inserted between the teeth, the prisoner was
released from the trap and, fastened to a tree-trunk, was carried into
camp.
[Illustration: A TRAPPED LION. I HEARD HIM ROARING AT A DISTANCE OF A
MILE AND A HALF.]
But what takes only a few words to describe involved hours of work.
It was a wonderful burden, and one not to be seen every day! In my
previous book I have already described how we carried a half-grown lion
in a similar manner, and I have given an illustration of the scene.
Unfortunately some of my best photographs, showing my bearers carrying
this full-grown lion, were lost while crossing a river.
I was full of delight at the thought of my captive as he would appear
in my encampment. But to my great chagrin the lion died in it quite
suddenly, evidently from heart failure. We could find no trace of any
wound.
There was something really moving at this issue to the struggle, in the
thought that I, using wile against strength, should have overpowered
and captured this noble beast only to break his heart!
This failure made me fear that I should never succeed in capturing
a lion by such methods. It seemed almost better to use a large
grating-trap in which it could be kept for several days and gradually
accustomed to the loss of its freedom. But this meant an expensive
apparatus which was quite beyond the funds of a private individual with
narrow means like myself. My efforts to capture lions by means of pits
dug by the natives were quite unsuccessful, because the lions always
found a way out.