Part 11 (1/2)
[In ”By Veld and Kopje”] I cannot deal with the episode here, in detail
Quite recently I came across a reminiscence of this trip in an unexpected quarter In his ”Recollections” Mr David Christie Murray relates hohen dining at the Hotel Misseri, in Constantinople, at the ti between a French officer, Captain Tiburce Morisot, and Archibald Canized each other as havinga visit of Cairaffe's heart at the camp-fire
I happened to be present at the occurrence evidently referred to; the episode took place on the very expedition which I iven to Mr Murray is quite wrong The party was not co a e of it He was, as a , the same as I was We were on convoy duty near the Komati River It was a marrow-bone and not the heart that was roasted I have a very clear recollection of the incident The skin of the giraffe was the largest I have ever seen; it had been found necessary to cut it in two before it could be re adventure with a lion We were camped at the Crocodile River Drift; lions were hborhood than I have ever known theruntled around our encampment The river bank, close to the water, was very sandy, and the spoor on the sand strip, which lay about two hundred yards froons, showed that ht It was our habit to light six large fires as soon as the sun went down
Morisot said he wanted to shoot a lion, so one day he dug a shallow pit in the sand, within about twenty yards of the water Just before nightfall he took his rifle and went away in the direction of the drift Nothing happened for a couple of hours; then we heard the sound of approaching footsteps evidently of soasps
Shortly afterwards Morisot, minus his rifle and hat, rushed into cahastly terror; his jaw had dropped, his face was ashen, his eyes were glazed He tottered to his sleeping place and crept under the blankets
Morisot could never be induced to tell us what had happened to hi, however, we found the spoor of a very large lion at the edge of the pit My own idea is that Morisot went to sleep and akened by the lion growling within a few inches of his face One could hardly bla demoralized under such circuh the denuded tract between Delagoa Bay and the Drakensberg can form no idea as to the marvelous richness of animal life on those plains in the early seventies More especially was this the case in the level wooded area extending froe to shi+p Mountain Blue wildebeeste and quagga were so plentiful that we seldom wasted ae herds
Waterbuck were always to be found near the rivers Elephants existed, but were very wild and usually were scarce Giraffe were numerous, but difficult to approach on foot
The Ko strea their banks the dense, evergreen boskage lay soft and rich as velvet In these enchanted thickets koodoo, sable, and other beautiful antelopes of the rarer varieties were always to be found I the river courses as were springbucks on the upland southern plains
Shooting stories are proverbially as unreliable as fishi+ng ones I have hitherto avoided relatingexperiences They do not, I suppose, differ froa like their present pitch of deadly perfection I think, however, that every old hunterenough if he only could get people to believe theh literally true, are so grossly improbable that I candidly confess I would not believe theive a specimen of these Munchausen-like anecdotes, just to show the reader hoell-advised I have been in suppressing the series On one occasion, when camped about tenthe Balala [Landless and weaponless waifs ander over uninhabited tracts Lit, ”people who are dead”] came in to report that a very fine tsessaby bull was to be found in a kloof some four miles away The meat of the tsessaby is aun was a double-barreled one, the left barrel taking a Snider cartridge and the right a cartridge with a round bullet, only to be used at close quarters
Before I had gone five hundred yards froe blue wildebeest bulls on my left They were notto all precedent they should have deca this, however, they kept a course more or less parallel to mine Suddenly, however, they turned and ca manner, so much so that my Balala companion climbed into a tree and I laidanihty yards I fired, hitting the leader just where the neck sank into the chest; he fell dead
The other wildebeest ran away for about fifty yards; then he wheeled round and stood facing me Just as I was about to fire he turned and stood broadside on, gazing at the carcass of hisjust behind the shoulder The bullet ”klopped” hard The aniht, and once ain I fired, and once more the bullet ”klopped” Then the wildebeest made a swift rush for about sixty yards and collapsed After falling it lay perfectly still
I found that my bullets had struck within two inches of each other I cut the carcass open and found that both bullets had pierced the heart, not alone pierced it, but torn it to literal ribbons of flesh
The critical reader, especially if he has ever hunted big ga tale contains three ih the circumstances happened exactly as related, I do not expect to be believed
About four miles to the north of our ca and of varying breadth It was more or less full of reeds; it also contained several extensive patches of low, dense jungle This leegte was the e extent of surrounding country; everyto the density of the cover they were seldoanized by our people acting in conjunction with a party of hunters ere camped about fifteen h lions, whose spoor had been followed to one of the jungle-patches
The marauders had been traced to one end of the cover, so we put in some beaters bethere we supposed thele area The beaters lit a row of s the line they occupied Eventually a lion broke to the open, like a driven buck, close to where one of the hunters was standing The latter fired, and hit the lion in the tail
The effect of the wound was very startling No longer was the lion a shrinking fugitive, disgusted at having been disturbed before his ested, and only anxious to get to so place Noas a tornado of fury with fla short, coughing thunder-growls of wrath, he charged straight for the one who had fired the shot
Theinto the branches of a tree
The latter was too s at the dee However, a skilful shot froht the furious brute to the dust A surprising sequel to the incident was this: the man who had fled up the tree claimed the lion's skin, on the score that he had drawn first blood
About fifteen miles away fros, old Kaffrarian friends of mine I once walked over to see them A sort of kraal-fence of horns around their encampment was evidence of the splendid sport they had enjoyed Mr Hilton Barber had had a narrow escape a few days previously When on horseback he had been charged by a wounded buffalo Mr Barber was flung off His horse was killed, but the buffalo fell to a well-directed bullet fired from the fallen rider while the poor horse was still impaled on the cruel horns
The Barber party had encountered few, if any, lions up to the time ofoccurred