Men may still be wounded by teeth or claws, as I have known one who lost an arm to a tiger, and every now and then a man is killed, although he has modern weapons in his hand; but it is mostly by accident or stupidity, and nearly always by preventable accident, like getting wounded on a railway. It is painful, and may be fatal; but so rare and so preventable that to take the risk needs no more courage than to step into a train.
That is why so many lies are told. The truth is bald. I have witnessed some, and credibly heard of hundreds of hunting adventures, in the most dangerous corners of the world; and read of [199] ]thousands more. To see the truth, one has to allow for the many events that seem too commonplace to remember, as well as for all the tricks of slippery memory. Statistics are not available, which is helpful in a thing like this; for statistics are misleading, and can be quoted to prove anything. So every man has to generalise from what he knows; and, doing so, I concur in the opinion of those judicious persons who think that the most dangerous kinds of modern hunting are safer in every way than common coal-mining. The percentage of mortality is almost certainly a great deal smaller. Not once, so far as I have been able to believe, not once did any man, with modern weapons in his hands, do anything very heroic, or need to do it. The grit was often there; but there was no real opportunity, for it is not the mere taking of risks that makes the hero. The gambling spirit is equal to that. The hero rises above selfishness as far as above fear, and does what he sees to be right, unheeding consequences. In our long war with the beasts, which has lasted so many millenniums, we needed such men at the start, but not now. The brunt of the battle is over, and anyone can finish it.
That is why there is little to tell in our anecdotes of modern adventures, unless when something [200] ]happens under primitive conditions. Never did any modern hunter have to face such danger as was faced by a bereaved old Burman grandfather in a village near Rangoon when he took a spear in his hand, and, with other old men, ran after the tiger that was carrying away his grandchild, and closed with it. These old fellows showed a spirit that makes one think better of humanity. But what are we to think of the idle men with breechloaders and servants? What drives them to the field or forest? The heavy burden of life-weariness, the Nemesis of idleness and plethora. The best of them are seeking a relief from real worries, perhaps, and the others killing time, or seeking amusement. Why not? It is nonsense for any man to dictate the pleasures of another; but let us have no cant at any rate, no make-believe heroics, as if the killing of cats needed particular bravery on the part of a man with a battery.
There are few more genuine pleasures in life than that of a European officer, who is at hand to help villagers in India against leopards or tigers, and feels his gun of use; and the wounds, if any, received in that way would leave honourable scars. But such a coincidence of duty and pleasure is rare, and seldom to be got by seeking for it. It [201] ]is altogether a different thing from the experience of sportsmen in search of sensations.
2. THE LION IN DEATH
Here is a cutting from a friendly review of a recent book in the Westminster Gazette of 5th December 1908.
“Our author, we have said, got no lions. Other game came to him in plenty, but the lions always evaded his gun. Yet he gives us a living picture of a lion hunt, when the harried animal, which has been trying to slink off, at last turns to bay and determines on the fight to a finish:
“‘Death is the only possible conclusion.
“‘Broken limbs, broken jaws, a body raked from end to end, lungs pierced through and through, entrails torn and protruding—none of these count. It must be death—instant and utter for the lion, or down goes the man, mauled by septic claws and fetid teeth, crushed and crunched, and poisoned afterwards to make doubly sure. Such are the habits of this cowardly and wicked animal.’”
Since Goldsmith described how