Wild beasts

by J. Hampden Porter

“The chief himself was with them, though he had no intention of taking any active part in the proceedings, and when we started he retired with some of his old men to a place of safety, and a council of how to proceed was held on the spot. My idea was that the guns should guard the more likely passes, while the people, numbering near five hundred, should beat out the jungle. To this, however, the objection was offered, that from the well-known thickness of the place, and the universal terror of the lion, the men would not attempt to beat it unless they were led by myself and my hunters. Such being the case, it was decided that spies should be placed in the tree-tops and other commanding positions, while the great body of the people were to enter at the top and drive down; but knowing as I did how very dangerous the affair would become if the lion was wounded in such cover, in many parts of which one could not see a yard off, I specially ordered my men not to fire unless they felt sure of killing or disabling the brute on the spot, and advised that every one, advancing in as unbroken a line as possible, and going slowly and making all the noise possible, should try and make it slink off before them, and enable us in the end to get a fair chance at it in the open.

“Half an hour was spent in waiting for the spies to take up their positions, and then the whole body, chanting a hunting song so loudly that it could have been heard miles off, and must undoubtedly have broken the slumbers of the lion, marched up to the top, and spreading out, so as to take in all but the outskirts, where it was improbable that he would be, they entered the jungle shouting at the top of their voices, partly, no doubt, in obedience to my wishes, but quite as much to keep their own courage up. In this fashion, and amid cries of ‘Get up! Get out, you dog! Where’s the dog?’ to which they trusted a good deal as likely to intimidate the lion, we passed right through to the other side, and though the ground had been beaten quite as well as it was possible for anything smaller than elephants to do, no vestige of the animal had been seen.

“Hardly, however, had the men begun to cluster out upon the open, before there was a shouting from the extreme left, which, when passed on through the stragglers, soon resolved itself into the lion having been seen there. Of course there was a general rush in that direction, which I accompanied, until I met a man who had come from the spot, and who said the brute had just showed itself and turned back. On hearing this I stopped those nearest to me and sent them to collect every one they could find, and in a few minutes two-thirds of the people had come around me. I then divided them into two bodies; the larger, led by all my hunters, except one, who remained with me, I sent to enter the jungle on the outer side and to beat through it, shouting and firing their guns; the other I took myself down to a stream which, at four or five hundred yards distance, fronted the spot where the lion had shown himself, and made them lie down in the bushes that lined it. About fifty men I stationed round the jungle, telling them never to cease making a noise, and I also removed the spies from in front of us.

“It took a long time to do this, and longer for the men to begin to beat, and we waited for an hour by the stream bank before anything happened. I had left my place and gone to drink, and as I turned to come back, a stir and rustle among the bushes where the men lay concealed made me think something must be in sight, and as soon as I got back, the man next me said, ‘There he is!’ and I caught sight of the lion standing under the shade of a solitary tree outside of the jungle, with his head turned in the direction of the beaters, evidently uncertain whether to await them where he was, or to take to flight. At last, doubtless considering that this was a different phase of the human character from the one he was accustomed to meet with during his midnight maraudings, he turned tail, and coming towards us in long easy bounds, was soon within a hundred yards of those concealed furthest down. Most fortunately I had told them all not to show themselves on any account before I did so myself, and so the brute, unsuspicious of danger, made for a ford near to which the hunter who had come down with me had stationed himself. At sixty yards he fired and rolled the animal over like a rabbit, it performing a complete somersault before it regained its legs; up the whole line jumped with a yell, and the lion, which I had first fancied was killed, continued his course the same as before, only, perhaps, rather stupefied by the shot, he abandoned the ford, and ran parallel to the stream, taking no notice of the people, many of whom shrank back as they saw him approaching their part of the line. I began to cover him when he was still two hundred yards off, and I think I kept the gun up too long, for when I fired at half that distance I missed clean. I made a better shot with my other barrel, rather too far forward, but just catching the point of the shoulder, and of course putting the limb hors de combat. The brute appeared to be as cowardly by daylight as he was daring in the dark, for instead of charging he bolted under a small tree and lay down growling, and in ten minutes all who were coming—and three-fourths of the men did so—had made their appearance, and were formed in a compact body behind me. He had not waited all this time very patiently; but when I fancied that I saw symptoms of his having a desire to slink away out of reach of the fast-arriving relatives of his victims, I had all the dogs set at him, and though only a few would go, and they could not have hampered his escape, yet they distracted his attention for a time.

“Our plan was a very simple one. The five hunters and myself were to walk up as close as we dared, and fire in volleys of three, and if we did not kill, and he charged, we were to bolt behind the natives for shelter. We walked up within thirty yards, and I and two hunters stood up while three knelt in front of us and fired, the lion growling furiously the while, but not attempting to move. The moment, however, the balls struck him—and with a lion crouched flat as he was, it was not to be expected that they could kill him unless one hit the centre of his forehead—he came straight at us, roaring horribly. My two companions, hardly going through the form of taking aim, pulled their triggers and joined those who had already fired. Fortunately the lion could not spring with a broken shoulder, and though he looked most unutterably savage, he did not get over the ground very fast, so I took a steady shot at the centre of his big chest, fully expecting to see him tumble over, but could not even see that it had struck him; and as he was getting very near I did not take a much better aim with the second barrel than the last two hunters had, and, like them, missed, turning as I did so, and running away for bare life. I was surprised to see how the men behind had diminished in numbers, but still there remained upwards of a hundred, who so far showed no sign of flinching, and I bolted in behind them and began to reload, altering my position when once the powder was down, so that I could see what was going on.

“The lion had charged up to within ten yards of them, and then, no doubt, awed, by their steadiness, he had pulled up, and was now walking slowly up and down like an officer in command, growling and showing his teeth, and looking a very noble animal with his heavy yellow mane floating around him. Very likely he would have remained like this until we had reloaded had not a young fellow in the first rank flung his assagai, with an insulting expression, at him; but as the spear-head entered he made two bounds forward, singling out the unfortunate man, who, however, met him pluckily, presenting him with his great six-foot shield to tear at, while he stuck him in the chest with his long and keen double-edged stabbing spear. As he did so there was a sudden jerk, as of a steel trap closing along the line, through which I was in time to catch sight of two more assagais being simultaneously plunged into the beast. All those who had run away hurried up, and a dense mass was formed, pushing and struggling to get into the centre, making the scene somewhat resemble a native foot-ball match I had once seen in the colonies. Such a contest could not possibly be continued long. Dozens of spears had been buried in the brute’s body the instant it had reached the man, while, although I could tell by the shouting that they were still stabbing it, it was probably only a dead body on which they were wreaking their vengeance. Be that as it might, it was nearly half an hour before I could find an opening that led to the lion’s carcass, and I do not think there was one solitary individual among all who were out that day who had not gratified himself by driving his spear into it; at any rate, its skin was a perfect sieve, and had at least five or six hundred holes in it. The price at which the victory was gained was comparatively small, only one man having received a fatal wound; while the one upon whom the lion had sprung escaped with some severe gashes and a broken arm.”

Those italics inserted in this narrative were not placed there by Drummond, but by the writer. They are intended to mark a propensity which he shared with many others to accuse the lion of cowardice while in the act of relating his deeds of desperation. This one it appears was “cowardly” because, with a shattered shoulder and other severe wounds, he did not at once attack a hundred armed men drawn up to receive him. Again and again had he penetrated into the midst of a populous village, and torn people out of their houses. All the same, he paused during the fight described, and was a poltroon. It is true that after walking up and down before his enemies like a lion of the Atlas as described by Gérard, he finally charged home and fought until cut to pieces. Still he was “cowardly.” This is perplexing; there must be some standard by which courage is judged of in the case of lions that ordinary people know nothing about.

It is disappointing to find a man whom Lloyd calls “the well-informed Andersson,” saying that “the length of a South African adult lion, from the nose to the extremity of the tail, is from eleven to twelve feet, ... and his weight not less than from five to six hundred pounds.” He knew all about the stretching of pegged-out skins, he had never seen a lion eleven feet long in his life, and yet he adds two feet, or at least eighteen inches, to the animal’s average length, and a hundred pounds to its weight. Nine feet and a half is the average length of a well-known Indian tiger, which is certainly a larger animal than the lion, and both may occasionally reach a length of ten feet, but very rarely. Sometimes, also, lions weigh as much as five hundred pounds, although few persons have met with specimens so heavy; but beyond these measurements and weights, nothing is on record that deserves serious consideration. There is a perfect fog of contradictions about the animal’s strength, leaping power, and his manner of carrying off prey; so that as far as testimony in these matters goes, no one can arrive at any conclusion. A lion stands about thirty-six inches high at the shoulder, and, of course, exceptional individuals may be taller. He can no more go straight with his head twisted over his shoulder than a man could; therefore, taking into consideration the length of his neck, those stories told about the manner in which lions bear off large animals in their mouths, and gallop away with oxen flung across their backs, have the disadvantage of being impossible. Thunberg asserts that one of these beasts will “attack an ox of the largest size, and very nimbly throw it over his shoulders, and leap a fence four feet high.” Leveson says he leaps the stockade of a kraal whose palisades are six feet above the ground, with a steer in his jaws; and Sparman declares that he saw a lion carry off a heifer in his mouth, “as a cat would a rat.” Drummond’s lions sprang over thorn fences of an indefinite height, carrying their human victims; Gérard’s made no difficulty about clearing the enclosures of Arab douars, while weighted with cattle. Montgomery Martin knew them to bear away horses and cows under like circumstances, and quite as many and as good authorities protest that all this is nonsense, and that they never did, and could not do, anything of the kind.

How much intellect this species possesses, and to what extent it can be cultivated, remains almost unknown. Their organization makes them subtle, fierce, and sometimes passionate beyond the limits of self-control, but they are, no doubt, capable of affection, and certainly exhibit marked preferences and dislikes. Apart from the instruction lions receive from their parents,—chiefly the mother,—and independently of anything which association may do for them, all are to a great degree self-taught; each one according to its capacity, to the extent of its opportunities, and correspondently with the character of its own mind. They design and carry out their conceptions, they imagine, and act the scenes suggested by fancy, they remember and combine their experiences.

Lions are not hunted with elephants in Africa. Dutch settlers in the southern part of this continent use horses, but only ride up within shooting distance, dismount, wheel their animals round so that they may receive the charge, if one is made, and then fire volleys with their roers—guns nearly as large as Asiatic and Mediæval wall-pieces. A number of other European sportsmen have also shot from the saddle; the advantage of this plan being that, in case the lion is only wounded, their horses will enable them to escape. Care is, however, necessary not to get too close; otherwise, so great is this beast’s speed for a short distance, that a mounted man is almost certain to be overtaken.