He can flatten himself out surprisingly;
and his tawny colour blends so well with the brown grasses that
he is practically invisible. A practised man does not, of course,
look for lions at all. He is after unusual small patches,
especially the black ear tips or the black of the mane. Once
guessed at, it is interesting to see how quickly the hitherto
unsuspected animal sketches itself out in the cover.
I should, before passing on to another aspect of the matter,
mention the dangerous poisons carried by the lion's claws. Often
men have died from the most trivial surface wounds. The grooves
of the claws carry putrefying meat from the kills. Every sensible
man in a lion country carries a small syringe, and either
permanganate or carbolic. And those mild little remedies he uses
full strength!
The great and overwhelming advantage is of course with the
hunter. He possesses as deadly a weapon: and that weapon will
kill at a distance. This is proper, I think. There are more lions
than hunters; and, from our point of view, the man is more
important than the beast. The game is not too hazardous. By that
I mean that, barring sheer accident, a man is sure to come out
all right provided he does accurately the right thing. In other
words, it is a dangerous game of skill, but it does not possess
the blind danger of a forest in a hurricane, say. Furthermore, it
is a game that no man need play unless he wants to. In the lion
country he may go about his business-daytime business-as though
he were home at the farm.
Such being the case, may I be pardoned for intruding one of my
own small ethical ideas at this point, with the full realization
that it depends upon an entirely personal point of view. As far
as my own case goes, I consider it poor sportsmanship ever to
refuse a lion-chance merely because the advantages are not all in
my favour. After all, lion hunting is on a different plane from
ordinary shooting: it is a challenge to war, a deliberate seeking
for mortal combat. Is it not just a little shameful to pot old
felis leo at long range, in the open, near his kill, and wherever
we have him at an advantage-nine times, and then to back out
because that advantage is for once not so marked? I have so often
heard the phrase, "I let him (or them) alone. It was not good
enough," meaning that the game looked a little risky.
Do not misunderstand. I am not advising that you bull ahead into
the long grass, or that alone you open fire on a half dozen lions
in easy range. Kind providence endowed you with strategy, and
certainly you should never go in where there is no show for you
to use your weapon effectively.
