We Both Felt Very Pleased With Ourselves As
We Stood Over Him And Looked At His Fine Head,
Great Paws, And Long, Clean, Sharp Tusks.
He
was a young, but full-grown lion in fine condition,
and measured nine feet eight and a half inches
from tip of nose to tip of tail.
My last shot had
entered the spine close to the shoulder, and had
lodged in the body; the first shot was a miss;
as I have already said; but the second had
caught him on the forehead, right between the
eyes. The bullet, however, instead of traversing
the brain, had been turned downwards by the
frontal bone, through which it crashed, finally
lodging in the root of the tongue, the lead
showing on both sides. I cut out the tongue
and hung it up to dry, intending to keep it as
a trophy; but unfortunately a vulture swooped
down when my back was turned, and carried
it off.
From the time I knocked the lion over until
he first staggered and fell not more than a
minute could have elapsed - quite long enough,
however, to have enabled him to cover the
distance and to have seized one or other of us.
Unquestionably we owed our lives to the fact
that we both remained absolutely motionless; and
I cannot speak too highly of Mahina for the
splendid way in which he stood the charge. Had
he acted as did another gun-boy I know of, the
affair might not have had so happy an ending.
This gun-boy went out with Captain G - - in
this very neighbourhood, and not long after our
adventure. G - - came across a lion just as
we did, and wounded it. It charged down on
them, but instead of remaining absolutely still,
the terrified gun-boy fled, with the result that the
lion came furiously on, and poor G - - met
with a terrible death.
While Mahina was scouring the neighbourhood
in search of some natives to carry the skin back
to camp, I took a good look round the place
and found the half-eaten body of a zebra,
which I noticed had been killed out in the open
and then dragged into the long grass. The tracks
told me, also, that all the work had been done
by the lion, and this set me thinking of the
lioness. I accordingly swept the plain with my
glasses in the direction in which she had bounded
off, and after some searching I discovered her
about a mile away, apparently lying down in
the midst of a herd of hartebeeste, who grazed
away without taking any notice of her. I felt
much inclined to follow her up, but I was afraid
that if I did so the vultures that were already
hovering around would settle on my lion and
spoil the skin, for the destruction of which these
ravenous birds are capable, even in the space of
only a few minutes, is almost beyond belief. I
accordingly returned to the dead beast and sat
down astride of him. I had read that a frontal
shot at a lion was a very risky one, and on
carefully examining the head it was easy to see the
reason; for owing to the sharp backward slope
of the forehead it is almost impossible for a
bullet fired in this manner to reach the brain. As
there were lots of lions about in this district and
as I wanted to bag some more, I set myself to
think out a plan whereby the risk of a frontal
shot might be got rid of. About a fortnight
afterwards I had an opportunity of putting
my scheme into practice, happily with most
excellent results; this, however, is another story,
which will be told later on.
I next commenced to skin my trophy and found
it a very tough job to perform by myself. He
proved to be a very fat beast, so I knew that
Mahina would make a few honest and well-earned
rupees out of him, for Indians will give
almost anything for lion fat, believing that it is
an infallible cure for rheumatism and various
other diseases. When at length the skinning
process was completed, I waited impatiently
for the return of Mahina, who had by this time
been gone much longer than I expected. It is
rather a nerve shattering thing - I am speaking
for myself - to remain absolutely alone for hours
on a vast open plain beside the carcase of a
dead lion, with vultures incessantly wheeling
about above one, and with nothing to be seen or
heard for miles around except wild animals. It
was a great relief, therefore, when after a long
wait I saw Mahina approaching with half-a-dozen
practically naked natives in his train. It turned
out that he had lost his way back to me, so that
it was lucky he found me at all. We lost no time
in getting back to camp, arriving there just at
sundown, when my first business was to rub
wood ashes into the skin and then stretch it on
a portable frame which I had made a few days
previously. The camp fire was a big one that
night, and the graphic and highly coloured
description which Mahina gave to the eager circle
of listeners of the way in which we slew the
lion would have made even "Bahram, that great
Hunter," anxious for his fame.
CHAPTER XIX
THE STRICKEN CARAVAN
Not long after this adventure the permanent
way reached the boundary of the Kapiti Plains,
where a station had to be built and where
accordingly we took up our headquarters for a
week or two. A few days after we had settled
down in our new camp, a great caravan of some
four thousand men arrived from the interior
with luggage and loads of food for a Sikh regiment
which was on its way down to the coast, after
having been engaged in suppressing the mutiny
of the Sudanese in Uganda.
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