In Brightest Africa

by Carl Ethan Akeley

When we got to the edge of the forest the next morning Kennedy and I drew lots for the choice of position. He won and chose the upper end of the ravine toward which we were to drive, while I was to follow up behind the beaters to get him if he broke back. Of course we were not sure that our quarry was even in the neighbourhood, but I had great hope of everything except getting this first black-maned specimen myself, for Kennedy's position made it almost certain that he would get the animal if any one did. The first patch of bush that the beaters tackled was about 100 yards long and 50 yards wide. As they set up their usual racket before entering I thought I heard a lion's grunt, but as nothing more developed I concluded it had been merely some of the boys. This patch of bush was a mass of nettles, briers, and thorns, and made exceedingly disagreeable going. The porters were making very slow progress, so I went in to encourage them. However, by the time we were halfway through I was so scratched and torn that I quit and went out toward the bottom of the ravine. The briers had somewhat cooled my faith in the theory that the lion was in the ravine. I sat down on an ant-hill where I had a fair view. Kennedy fired and I looked quickly. The lion which had come out in front of Kennedy had turned and was running down across the ravine and up the other side. I had a good shot at him and the bullet knocked him over. However, he got up and went into a clump of bush. This clump just filled a kind of pot hole about fifty yards in diameter. Kennedy watched one side and I the other so that we had every avenue of escape covered. The beaters then began throwing stones and sticks into the bush. The lion made no move. He might be dead or he might be lying close. We wanted to know, but no one wanted to know sufficiently to crawl in and see. Finally Dudo, my gun-bearer, suggested that we light a fire and make some firebrands. We busied ourselves with this. In the meanwhile, there was no response from the lion. When the firebrands were ready Dudo asked leave to throw the first one for he maintained that he knew where the lion was. Dudo threw, and as his firebrand disappeared in the brush there was a roar and a shaking of the bushes that told exactly where the beast was hidden. A shower of firebrands followed but with no effect. Then the boys threw rocks. But nothing resulted. By this time Kennedy had joined the crowd. All the beaters and both of us were grouped on one side of the pot hole. Dudo now took a small-bore rifle and fired, not in an effort to kill the lion but to move him. It succeeded, and he moved, not away from us but toward us. The way of retreat was open but he didn't take it. Dudo fired again, and again the bushes moved toward us. Finally the old fellow was so close to the edge of the brush that while we couldn't see him he undoubtedly could see us. He stood looking out on thirty black men and two white men in front of a great fire—a crowd of his enemies. The path was not blocked in any other direction. He looked us over carefully for fully five minutes and then of his own volition, with a great roar, he charged out of the brush and up from the pot hole. Halfway up the slope the fatal bullet hit him. He was killed charging his enemies and without thought of retreat—the first black-maned lion ever shot in British East Africa.

He was old and had been through various vicissitudes. At one time he had had a leg broken but it had healed perfectly. The tip of his tail was gone also. But for all that he was a great specimen.

These two instances are fair examples of the usual method of hunting lions in British East Africa. Riding after them on horseback might be considered a different method than the beating, but as a matter of fact, the two merge into each other. When beating, the lion hunter usually rides until he actually reaches the lion's cover, and if he runs on to a lion in the open he rides after it until the superior speed of the horse over any fair distance forces the lion to stop and lie down at bay. And, likewise, if one is riding after lions and the lion gets into cover, the game is up unless there are beaters to get him out.

Paul Rainey introduced an added element to the horseback method of lion hunting when he imported his lion hounds. I call them lion hounds for they chased lions—that is the only thing the pack had in common. It included curs, collies, airedales, bear hounds from the South, and almost every other kind of canine. When Rainey and the hounds appeared, the Governor of East Africa remarked that the lions were going to get some good dog meat. But within a couple of years "hounding lions" was stopped because the lions fell too easy a prey to the hounds and hunters. When Rainey took his hounds there no one was certain how the lions would act, and it was a sporting thing to try. But it soon developed—and Rainey, who is a thorough sportsman, was one of the first to see it—that the hounds kept the lion so busy once he was brought to bay that the hunter could approach and take as many shots as necessary with almost perfect immunity from a charge. It is not quite accurate to say that Rainey introduced the practice of hunting lions with dogs. Foa, the French traveller, speaks of the practice ten years before Rainey went to Africa. He even tried to organize a pack. His pack failed. But the principle of having dogs keep the lions so busy that they would not charge, he described completely.

Besides these daylight methods of hunting it was a common practice to hunt lions at night by baiting—that is, to kill an animal and hide near it in the hope that a lion would come to eat, and then shoot him. There is not much danger in this, for the thorn bomas, or hiding places, are a good protection, and the lion would not be likely to attack any one unless he was shot at or molested. There is, of course, the instance of the black man killed in the boma in Somaliland, but that event is the exception.

As a method of killing lions, night baiting is not very sportsmanlike, but as a method of photographing it is not only legitimate but it has produced by far the best lion pictures ever made in Africa—especially those of Schilling and A. Radclyffe Dugmore. Rainey and Buffalo Jones got some remarkable moving pictures of hunting lions with dogs, but the total number of all pictures of live lions ever taken is still in keeping with the small amount of detailed and accurate knowledge of lions' habits which we have. To my mind the finest lion-hunting picture ever taken was brought back by Lady Grace McKenzie. Her operator got a moving picture of a wounded lion charging. It shows the lion's rush from the bush at Lady McKenzie and her companion—a white man. It shows the man turn and run and the lion rush right by Lady McKenzie after him. There the picture ends. On his recent trip Martin Johnson got a motion picture of five lions crossing the plains, one of which was shot by Mr. Johnson.

But neither beating, baiting, nor hounding is the really sportsmanlike method of hunting lions—it is spearing, and spearing takes a black man.

One time in Uganda, after I had been under a considerable strain while elephant hunting, I decided that I needed a rest and a change. I set out for the Uasin Gishu Plateau where I got together one hundred Nandi spearmen. We had no difficulty in getting volunteers, for they were to be paid and fed for playing the game they loved. During the first half day out from the government station, where we gathered our force together, the alarm of lion was sounded. We were approaching a patch of bush. The spearmen entered the bush from all sides. I placed my motion-picture camera at a point of vantage. The idea was to drive the lion out in front of the camera and have the spearmen at that point spear him. Above the din of the spearmen in the bush I finally heard the angry growl of a leopard. There was great excitement in the bush for a few seconds. Then three of the boys came out of the bush. The middle boy of the three was being carried and his scalp was hanging down over his face. Behind this trio came a group carrying the dead leopard. Later, when his skin was stretched, it showed sixty spear holes.

I promptly took the wounded boy under the shade of a mimosa tree, shaved him, and sewed his scalp back into place and cared for his other wounds. He showed little interest in the proceedings beyond asking a question of the other black boys about what I was doing. Seemingly the whole operation was over before he recovered from the shock of his mauling. The next morning when I sent him home he was much troubled. He said that he had not committed any offence and he did not see why he had to be sent home. His wounds did not seem to trouble him or to dampen the ardour of the others in the slightest.

We went on for a week. One day, just as we were making camp near a waterfall, an alarm was sounded near the forest. One of the boys had seen a lion. His whereabouts was discovered after much beating back and forth. I got my camera ready as before at the place the boys thought the fight would take place, but the lion did not do his part. He broke in a different direction and another bunch of spearmen got him two hundred yards away. It was so exasperating to have something prevent this most exciting of all movie photography from succeeding that I almost failed to appreciate the courage and skill of the spearmen.