THE LAST WORD IN LION HUNTING. METHODS OF TRAILING, ENSNARING AND
OTHERWISE OUTWITTING THE KING OF BEASTS. A CHAPTER OF ADVENTURES
If some one were to start a correspondence course in lion hunting he
would give diagrams and instructions showing how to kill a lion in about
six different styles--namely:
The boma method.
The tall grass method.
The riding method.
The tree method.
The lariat method.
The spear method.
This list does not include the Ananias method, formerly popular.
The tree and boma methods are much esteemed by those sportsmen who wish
to reduce personal danger to the least common denominator--the sportsmen
who think discretion is the better part of valor and a hunter in a tree
is worth two in the bush. The sportsman who confines himself to the tree
method is entitled to receive a medal "for conspicuous caution in times
of danger," and the loved ones at home need never worry about his safe
return. For safe lion hunting the "tree" method would get "first prize,"
while the "boma" method would receive honorable mention.
The "tall grass" method is less popular in that the lion has some show
and often succeeds in getting away to tell about it. It involves danger
to all concerned.
[Drawing: _Spearing Lions_]
The "riding" method is also dangerous, for in it the hunter endeavors to
"round up" or "herd" a lion by riding him to a standstill. When the lion
is fighting mad he stops and turns upon his persecutors. This is when
the obituary columns thrive.
The "lariat" method is not as yet in general vogue, but I understand
that "Buffalo" Jones, an American, succeeded in roping a lion as they
rope cattle out west. It sounds diverting.
[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. A Dead Lion Is a Sign for
Jubilation]
[Photograph: A Dethroned King of Beasts]
The "spear" method is that employed by natives, who, armed with spear
and shield, surround a lion and then kill it with their spears. They
invariably succeed, but not until a few of the spear-bearers are more or
less Fletcherized by the lion. This method does not appeal to those who
wish to get home to tell about it, and need not be considered at length
in any correspondence course.
[Drawing: _The Tree Method_]
The tree method is comparatively simple. You build a platform in a tree
and place a bait near it. Then you wait through the long, silent watches
of the night for Felis Leo to appear. The method has few dangers. The
chief one lies in falling asleep and tumbling out of the tree, but this
is easily obviated by making the platform large enough for two or three
men, two of whom may stretch out and sleep while the other one remains
awake and keeps guard.
When I went to Africa I resolved never to climb a tree. Later I resolved
to try the tree method in order to get experience in a form of lion
hunting that has many advocates among the valiant hunters who want lion
skins at no expense to their own.
Of course, there are some perils connected with this method of lion
slaying. Mosquitoes may bite you, causing a dreadful fever that may
later result in death in some lingering and costly form. Also the biting
ants may pursue you up to your aery perch and take small but effective
bites in many itchable but unscratchable points. These elements of
danger are about the only ones encountered in the tree method of lion
hunting, but then who could expect to kill lions without some degree of
personal discomfort?
My one and only tree experience was not particularly eventful. A large
and commodious platform was built in the forks of a great tree in a
district where the questing grunt of lions could be heard each night.
The platform was comfortable; it only needed hot and cold running water
to be a delightful place to spend a tropic night.
I shot a hartebeest and had it dragged beneath the tree. Then my two
native gunbearers and I made a satisfactory ascent to the platform. We
had a thermos bottle filled with hot tea, and some odds and ends in the
way of solid refreshments. We then stretched out in positions that
commanded a view of the hartebeest and waited patiently for an obliging
lion to come and be shot.
Night came on and soon the landscape became shadowy and indistinct.
Trees and bushes fused into vague black masses and the carcass of the
bait could be located only because it seemed a shade more opaque than
the opaque gloom around it. The more you looked at it the more elusive
and shifting it seemed. The sights of the rifle were invisible, and the
only way one could find the sight was by aiming at a star and then
carefully lowering the direction of the weapon until it approximately
pointed at the carcass.
Of course, we were very still; even the stars were not more silent than
we. And little by little the noises of an African night were heard,
growing in volume until from all sides came the cries of night birds and
the songs of insects and tree-toads. It was the apotheosis of
loneliness. And thus we sat, with eyes straining to pierce the gloom
that hedged us in. We could see no sign of life, yet all about us in
those dark shadows there were thousands of creatures moving about on
their nightly hunt.
Suddenly there came the soft crescendo of a hyena's howl some place off
in the night. It was answered by another, miles away; then another, far
off in a still different direction. The scent of the bait was spreading
to the far horizon and the keen-scented carrion-eaters had caught it and
were hurrying to the feast.
Then, after moments of waiting, the howls came from so near that they
startled us. There seemed to be dozens of hyenas--a regular class
reunion of them--yet not one could be seen in the "murky gloom." And
then, a moment later, we heard the crunching of teeth and the slither of
rending flesh, and we knew that a supper party of hyenas was gathered
about the festal board below us. I was afraid that they would eat up the
carcass and thus keep away the lions, so I fired a shot to scare them
away. There was a quick rush of feet--then that dense, expectant silence
once more. Soon some little jackals came and were shooed away. Then more
hyenas came, were given their congé, and hurried off to the tall grass.
And yet no lion. It was quite disappointing.
At midnight, far off to the north, came the grunting voice of a lion. I
waited eagerly for the next sound which would indicate whether the lure
of the bait was beckoning him on. And soon the sound came, this time
much nearer, and after a long silence there was a sharp, snarling grunt
of a lion, followed by the panic-stricken rush of a hundred heavy hoofs.
The conjunction of sounds told the story as definitely as if the whole
scene lay bared to view. The lion had leaped upon a hartebeest,
probably instantly breaking its neck, while the rest of the herd had
galloped away in terror. And it had all happened within two or three
hundred yards of the tree--yet nothing could be seen.
At two o'clock the grunt of a lion was again heard far off to the south.
It came steadily toward us, and at last there was no doubt about its
destination. It was coming to the bait. How my eyes strained to pierce
the darkness and how breathlessly I waited with rifle in readiness! But
the lion only paused at the bait, and as I waited for it to settle down
to its feast it went grunting away and the chance was gone. Perhaps it
had already fed, or perhaps it was an unusually fastidious lion which
desired to do its own killing.
An hour or two later, both gunbearers asleep and one snoring peacefully,
I became aware of a large animal feeding at the bait. Although no sound
had preceded its coming, I thought it might be a lion, but feared that
it was a hyena. I fired at the dark, shifting, black shadow and the roar
of the big rifle shattered the silence like a clap of unexpected
thunder. Then there was such a dense silence that it seemed to ring in
one's ears.
Had I hit or missed? That could not be decided until daybreak, for it is
the height of folly to climb down from a tree to feel the pulse of a
wounded lion.
When daybreak came we made an investigation. Only the mangled remains of
the carcass lay below. Later in the day some members of our party came
across the dead body of a hyena lying about a hundred yards from the
tree, partly hidden by a little clump of bushes. Its backbone was
shattered by a .475 bullet.
Thus ended my first and only adventure in the "tree method."
The boma method is slightly more dangerous and much more exciting. A lot
of thorn branches are twisted together in a little circle, within which
the hunter sits and waits for his lion. As in the tree method, a bait is
placed near the boma, twelve or fifteen yards away, and a little
loophole is arranged in the tangle of thorn branches through which the
rifle may be trained upon the bait.
[Drawing: _The Boma Method_]
The lion can not get into the boma unless he jumps up and comes in from
the top. It is the function of the hunter to prevent this strategic
manoeuver 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.
My first boma was a meshwork of thorns piled and interwoven together
with the architectural simplicity of an Eskimo igloo. When it was
finished there didn't seem to be the ghost of a chance of a lion getting
in; but at night, as I looked out, it seemed frail indeed. Some dry
grass was piled inside, with blankets spread over it to prevent
rustling; and when night came we three, myself and two gunbearers,
wormed our way in and then pulled some pieces of brush into the opening
after us. The rifles were sighted on the bait while it was still
daylight and at a spot where the expected lion might appear. Then we
waited.
The customary nocturne by birds, beasts and insects began before long,
and several times hyenas and jackals came to the bait, but no lions. The
boma was on the edge of a great swamp, miles in extent and a great
rendezvous for game of many kinds. Theoretically, there couldn't be a
better place to expect lions, but nary a lion appeared that night.
Upon a later occasion--Christmas night, it was--I watched from a boma
near an elephant we had killed, but except for the distant grunting of
lions, there was nothing important to chronicle.
Lion hunting goes by luck. One man may sit in a boma night after night
without getting a shot, while another may go out once and bring back a
black-mane. I spent two nights in a boma without seeing a lion;
Stephenson spent seven nights and saw only a lioness. He held his fire
in the expectation that the male was with her and would soon appear.
Presently a huge beast appeared, vague in the dark shadows; he thought
it was the male lion, shot, and the next morning found a large dead
hyena.
Mrs. Akeley went out only once, had a night of thrilling experiences,
and killed a large male lion. The lion appeared early in the evening and
her first shot just grazed the backbone. An inch higher and it would
have missed, but as it was, the mere grazing of the backbone paralyzed
the animal, preventing its escape. All night long it crouched helplessly
before them, twelve yards away, insane with rage and fury. Its roars
were terrifying. A number of times she shot, but in the darkness none of
the many hits reached a vital spot. Once in the night two other lions
came, but escaped after being fired at.
As soon as daylight appeared and she could see the sights of her rifle
she easily killed the lion. It was the largest one of the eleven killed
in our hunting trip, and was killed with a little .256 Mannlicher, the
same weapon with which she shot her record elephant on Mount Kenia.
In the tall-grass method, native beaters are sent in long skirmish line
through swamps and such places as lions like to lay up in during the
hours of daylight. The beaters chant a weird and rather musical refrain
as they advance and thrash the high reeds with their sticks. Reedbuck,
sometimes a bushbuck, frequently hyenas, and many large owls are driven
out of nearly every good-sized swamp. The hunters divide, one or more on
each side of the swamp and slightly ahead of the line of beaters. As the
lion springs out it is up to the hunter nearest to it to meet it with
the traditional unerring shot.
[Photograph: The Tree Method of Lion Shooting]
[Photograph: Dragged a Zebra to the Boma]
[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. The Rifle Was Sighted on the
Bait]
In our experience we beat dozens of swamps and reed beds. Stephenson
would take one side of the swamp, I the other, while Akeley with his
moving-picture machine, would take the side best suited to photographic
purposes. He got some wonderful results, two of which were records of
the death of two lionesses.
Upon the first of these occasions the beaters had worked down a long
stretch of swamp and had almost reached the end. Suddenly they showed an
agitated interest in something in front of them. They thought it was a
lion until an innocent by-stander made an unauthorized guess that it was
a hyena. This reassured the beaters and they advanced boldly in the
belief that it was a harmless hyena. My valor rose in proportion and for
the same reason, and I strolled bravely over to the edge of the reeds
where a little opening appeared. It was something of a shock to see two
lions stroll suddenly into view. I fired, hitting the last one. Then
they both disappeared in the reeds ahead.
It was amazing to note the sudden epidemic of caution upon the part of
all concerned. The beaters refused to advance until Stephenson joined
them with his big rifle. I moved forward on the side lines and the
moving-picture machine reeled off yards of film.
A man has to appear brave when a camera is turned on him, but with two
lions a few feet away there was not a tendency to advance with that
impetuous dash that one would like to see in a moving picture of
oneself. Anyway, I tried to keep up an appearance of advancing without
actually covering much territory.
One of my gunbearers suddenly clutched my arm and pointed into the
reeds. There, only a few feet away, was the tawny figure of a lion,
either lying down or crouching. I fired and nearly blew its head off. It
was the one I had wounded a few minutes before.
[Drawing: _Photographed in Times of Danger_]
There was still the other lion in the reeds. So I joined the beaters
while Stephenson came out and took a commanding position at the side of
the reeds. In a moment or two there was a tawny flash and the lion was
seen as it broke from the reeds and sprang away up the hill. It was on
the opposite side of the reeds from Stephenson, but his first shot hit
it and it stopped and turned angrily. In another instant it would have
charged, but a second shot from his rifle killed it instantly. Both of
the animals were young lionesses of the same age and nearly full grown.
Sometimes, when a lion is driven to bay in the tall grass at the end of
a swamp, the beaters refuse to advance, and it then becomes necessary
for the hunter to go in and take the lead. An occasion of this sort was
among the most thrilling of my African experiences.
An immense swamp had been beaten out and nothing had developed until the
beaters were almost at the end of the swamp. Extending from the end and
joining it was a patch of wire-like reeds, eight or ten feet high and
covering two or three acres. This high grass was almost impenetrable by
a man, and it was only possible to go through it by throwing one's
weight forward and crushing down the dense growth. The grass grew from
hummocks, between which were deep water channels. 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.
At about this time another lion came out of the swamp behind and loped
up the hill. The saises were sent galloping after it to round it up, but
they reappeared after a few moments and reported that it had got away in
the direction of a huge swamp a mile or so beyond. We began to think we
had struck a nest of lions.
Then we went in to drive out that lion in the deep grass. The native
beaters, encouraged by seeing armed white men leading the way, came
along with renewed enthusiasm. That grass was something terrible. One
would hardly care to go through it if he knew that a bag of gold or a
fairy princess awaited him beyond; with a lion there, the delight of the
job became immeasurably less. We could not see three feet ahead. From
time to time we were floundering down into channels of water hidden by
the density of the grass. Some of these channels were two feet deep. And
with each yard of advance came the realization that we were coming to an
inevitable show-down with that lion. Akeley and I were in with the
beaters, Stephenson was beyond the patch of grass to intercept the lion
should it break forth, from cover.
It was not until we had nearly traversed the entire patch of reeds that
the lion was found. It evidently lay silently ahead of us until we were
almost upon it. Then, almost beneath my feet, came the angry and ominous
growl, and my Somali gunbearer leaped in terror, falling as he did so. I
expected to see a long, lean flash of yellow body and to experience the
sensation of being mauled by a lion. All was breathlessly silent for a
moment. Then a shot from Stephenson's rifle said that the lion had burst
from the reeds and into view.
We pushed our way out to see what had happened.
The lion had come out, then turned suddenly back into the cover of
reeds, working its way along the front of the beaters. For an instant
Stephenson saw it and fired into the grass ahead of it without result.
The track of the lion was followed, but the animal had succeeded in
getting around the beaters and back into the swamp. Fires were lighted,
but the reeds were too green to burn except in occasional spots.
A few minutes later the saises, posted like sentinels high on the hills
that flanked the swamp, saw the lion again and galloped down to head it
off. It left the swamp and continued on down the rush-lined banks of a
stream, zigzagging its way back and forth. After a pursuit of a couple
of miles it was cornered in a small patch of reeds. Further retreat was
impossible and it knew that it had to fight.
The moving-picture machine was set up on one side and I was detailed to
guard that side. If the lion came out it was to be allowed to charge a
certain distance, within forty feet, before I was to fire. If it didn't
charge at us, but attempted to escape, it was to be allowed to run
across the strip of open ground in front of the camera before I was to
shoot.
Stephenson took his place on the other bank, twenty-five or thirty yards
from the edge of the reeds. Then the beaters were told to advance, and
they moved forward, throwing rocks and sticks into the reeds ahead of
them. The lion appeared on Stephenson's side. Like a flash it sprang
out. He fired and the lion stopped momentarily under the impact of a
heavy ball. Then it sprang a few yards onward, when a second shot laid
it out. The last shot was fired at less than twenty yards.
The moving-picture machine recorded the thrilling scene and there was an
hour of great rejoicing and jubilation. The animal was an old lioness
and the first shot had torn her lower jaw away and had gone into the
shoulder. It is amazing that she was not instantly killed--but that's a
way lions have. They never know when to quit.