A MODERN COEUR-DE-LION
To seek to come to death grips with the King of Beasts, a man must
himself be nothing short of lion-hearted. Such men there are, a few,
men with an inborn lust of battle, a love of staking their own lives
against the heaviest odds; men who, lacking a Crusader's cult or a
country's need to cut and thrust for, go out among the savage denizens
of the desert seeking opportunity to fight for their faith in their own
strong arms and steady nerves; men who shrink from a laurel but
treasure a trophy. William Northrup McMillan, a native of St. Louis,
who has spent the last eight years in exploration of the Blue Nile and
in travel through Abyssinia and British East Africa, is such a man.
A friend of Mr. McMillan has told me the following story of one of his
hunting experiences. While I can only tell it in simple prose, the
deed described deserves perpetuity in the stately metre of a saga.
The Jig-Jigga country, a province of Abyssinia lying near the border of
British Somaliland and governed by Abdullah Dowa, an Arab sheik owing
allegiance to King Menelek, is the best lion country in all Africa.
Jig-Jigga is an arid plateau averaging 5,000 feet above sea level,
poorly watered but generously grassed, sparsely timbered with the
thorny mimosa (full brother to the Texas _mesquite_), and swarming
everywhere with innumerable varieties of the wild game on which the
lion preys and fattens--eland, oryx, hartebeest, gazelle, and zebra.
There are two ways of hunting lion. First, from the perfectly safe
shelter of a zareba, a tightly enclosed hut built of thorny mimosa
bows, with no opening but a narrow porthole for rifle fire. Within the
_zareba_ the hunter is shut in at nightfall by his _shikaris_, usually
having one _shikari_ with him, sometimes with a goat as a third
companion and a lure for lion. An occasional bite of the goat's ear by
sharp _shikari_ teeth inspires shrill bleats sure to bring any lion
lurking near in range of the hunter's rifle. At other times goat ears
are spared, and the loudest-braying donkey of the caravan is picketed
immediately in front of the _zareba's_ porthole, his normal vocal
activities stimulated by the occasional prod of a stick. Sometimes
several weary sleepless nights are spent without result, but sooner or
later, without the slightest sound hinting his approach, suddenly a
great yellow body flashes out of the darkness and upon the cringing
lure. For an instant there are the sinister sounds of savage snarls,
rending flesh, cracking bones and screams of pain and fear, and then a
dull red flash heralds the rifle's roar, and the tawny terror falls
gasping his life out across his prey.
The second, and the only sportsmanlike way of lion-hunting, is by
tracking him in the open. The pony men circle till they find a trail,
follow it till close enough to the game to race ahead and bring it to
bay, circle about it while a messenger brings up the _Sahib_, who
dismounts and advances afoot to a combat wherein the echo of a
misplaced shot may sound his own death-knell.
One morning while camped in the Jig-Jigga country, William Marlow, our
_Sahib's_ valet, was out with the pony men trailing a wounded oryx,
while the _Sahib_ himself was three miles away shooting eland. In mid
forenoon Marlow's men struck the fresh track of two great male lions,
plainly out on a hunting party of their own.
Instantly Marlow rushed a messenger away to fetch the _Sahib_, and he
and the pony men then took the trail at a run. Within two hours the
pony men succeeded in circling the quarry and stopping it in a mimosa
thicket. Shortly thereafter, while they were circling and shouting
about the thicket to prevent a charge before the _Sahib's_ arrival, an
incident occurred which proves alike the utter fearlessness and the
marvellous knowledge of the game of the Somali. Suddenly out of the
shadows of the thicket sprang one of the lions and launched himself
like a thunderbolt upon one of the pony men, bearing horse and rider to
the ground. Losing his spear in the fall and held fast by one leg
beneath his horse, the rider was defenceless. However, he seized a
thorny stick and began beating the lion across the face, while the lion
tore at the pony's flank and quarters. Then down from his horse sprang
another pony man, and knowing he could not kill the lion with his spear
quickly enough to save his companion, approached and crouched directly
in front of the lion till his own face was scarcely two feet from the
lion's, and there made such frightful grimaces and let off such shrill
shrieks, that, frightened from his prey, the lion slunk snarling to the
edge of the thicket.
Just at this moment the _Sahib_ raced upon the scene, accompanied by
his Secretary, H. Morgan Brown. In the run he had far outdistanced his
gun-bearers. Marlow was unarmed and Brown carried nothing but a
camera. Thus the _Sahib's_ single-shot .577 rifle was the only
effective weapon in the party, and for it he did not even have a single
spare cartridge. The one little cylinder of brass within the chamber
of his rifle, with the few grains of powder and nickeled lead it held,
was the only certain safeguard of the group against death or mangling.
All this must have flashed across the _Sahib's_ mind as he leaped from
his pony and took stand in the open, sixty steps from where the lion
stood roaring and savagely lashing his tail. A little back of the
_Sahib_ and to his left stood Brown with his camera, beside him Marlow.
Instantly, firm planted on his feet, the _Sahib_ threw the rifle to his
face for a steady standing shot. But quicker even than this act,
instinctively, the furious King of Beasts had marked the giant bulk of
the _Sahib_ as the one foeman of the half-score round him worthy of his
gleaming ivory weapons, and at him straight he charged the very instant
the gun was levelled, coming in great bounds that tossed clouds of dust
behind him, coming with hoarse roars at every bound, roars to shake
nerves not made of steel and still the beating of the stoutest heart.
On came the lion, and there stood the _Sahib_--on and yet on--till it
must have seemed to his companions that the _Sahib_ was frozen in his
tracks.
But all the time a firm hand and a true eye held the bead of the rifle
sight to close pursuit of the lion's every move, so held it till only a
narrow sixteen yards separated man and beast. Then the _Sahib's_ rifle
cracked; and, with marvellous nerve, Brown snapped his camera a second
later and caught the picture of the kill. Hitting the beast squarely
in the forehead just at the take-on of a bound, the heavy .577 bullet
cleaned out the lion's brain pan and killed him instantly, his body
turning in mid-air and hitting the ground inert. A better rifle-shot
would be impossible, and as good a camera snapshot has certainly never
been made in the very face of instant, impending, deadly peril.
A half-hour later Lion Number Two, slower of resolution than his mate,
fell to the _Sahib's_ first shot, with a broken neck, while lashing
himself into fit fury for a charge. This was more even than a royal
kill; each of the lions was, in size, a record among Jig-Jigga hunters,
the first measuring eleven feet one inch from tip of nose to tip of
tail, the second eleven feet.
And then the party marched back to camp with the trophies, Djama Aout,
the head _shikari_, chanting paeans to his Sahib's prowess, while his
mates roared a hoarse Somali chorus, and all night long, by ancient law
of _shikari_, the camp feasted, chanted, and danced, one sable
saga-maker after another chanting his pride to serve so valiant a
_Sahib_.
THE END