Lyon County times. [volume] (Silver City, Nev.) 1874-1907, 1888-04-28
A TALE OF THREE LIONS


Most of you will have heard of Allan Qua,
termain, who was one of tho party that dis
covered King Solomon's mines some little
time ago, and who afterward came to live in
England near his friend, Sir Henry Curtis.
lie has gone back to the wilderness now, as
these old hunters almost invariably do, on
one pretext or another. They cannot endure
civilization for very long, its noise and racket
and the omnipresence of broadclothed hui
manity proving more trying to their nerves
than the dangers of the desert. think that
they feel lonely here, for it is a fact that is
100 litslc G1.derstood, though it has often
been stated, that there is no loneliness like the
loneliness of crowds especially to those who
arc uaaccustomed to them.
"What is there in the worli,n old Quater-
main would say, $50 desolate as to stand in
the streets of a great city and listen to the
footsteps falling, falling, multitudinous as
the rain, and watch the white line of faces
as they hurry past, you know not whence,
you know not whittier. They come aud 60,
their eyes meet yours with a cold stare, for
a moment their features are written on your
mind, and then they are gone forever. You
will never see them again, they will never
see you again: they come up out of the I'M
known, and presently they once more van
ish into the unknown, taking their secrets
with them. Yes, that is loneliness pure and
undefiled; but to one who knows and loves
it, the wilderness is not lonely, because the
spirit of nature is ever there to keep the
wanderer company. He finds companions in
the winds-the sunny streams babble like
natures children at his feet; high above
him, in the purple sunset, are domes and
minalets and palaces such as no mortal man
hath built, in and out of whose flaming doors
the glorious angels of the sun seem to move
continually. And there, too, is the wild
game following its feeding grounds in great
armies, with the springboll thrown out be-
fore for skirmishers, then rank upon rank of
long faced blesbuck marching and wheeling
like infantry, and last, the shining troops of
quagga and the fierce eyed, shaggy wilder
beeste to take the place of the Cossack host
that hangs upon an army's flanks.
"Oh, no" he would say, "the wilderness is
not lonely, for, my boy, remember that the
further you get from man the nearer you
grow to God" and, though this is saying
chat might well be disputed, it is one am
cure that anybody will easily understand
who has watched the sun rise and set on the
limitless, deserted plains, and seen the thun
der chariots of the clouds roll in majesty
across the depths of unfathomable sky.
Wei, at any rate he went back again, and
now. for many months have heard nothing
at all of him, and, to be frank, 1 greatly
doubt if anybody will ever hear Of him agair
fear that the wilderness that has for SO
many years been mother to him will now
also prove his grave and the grave of those
who accompanied him, for the quest upon
which he and they started is wild one IN
deed.
But while he was in England for those
years or so between his return from the sue
cessful discovery of %, wise kings buried
treasures and the deatsSf his only son, saw
great deal of old Allan Quatermain. l haG
known him years before in Africa, and after
he came home, whenever had nothing bet
ter to do, used to run up to Yorkshire ana
stay with him, and in this way at one time
and another heard many Of the incidents OF
his past life, and most curious some of them
were
No one can pass all those years following
the rough existence of an. elephant hunter
without meeting with many strange adven-
lures, and one way and another old Quater-
main has certainly seen his share. Well,
the story that l am going to tell
you is one of the later of these ad-
ventures, though | forget the exact year
which it happened At any rate know that
it was the only one of his trips upon which
he took his son Harry (who is since dead)
with him, and that Harry was then about IA.
And now for the story, which l will repeat
as nearly as can in the words in which
Hunter Quatermain told it to me one night
in the old oak paneled vestibule of his house
in Yorkshire. We were talking about gold
mining.
Gold mining" he broke in. "Ah, yes; !
once went gold mining at Pilgrims Rest in
the T1ansvaal, and it was before that that
we had business about Jim-JiIn and the
lions Do you know it. Well it is-or was
one of the queerest little places you ever saw.
TIL t. wn itself was pitched in stony valley,
with mountains all about it, and in the mid
die II such scenery as one docs not often get
the chance of seeing. Many and many is the
time that have thrown down my pick and
shovel in disgust, clambered out Of my claim
and walked couple of miles or so to the top
pfc I ia n