Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-26
BIG GAME In AFRICA.
A New Yorker Calls it the Worlds
Greatest Hunting Ground.
LIONS PLENTIFUL BUT QUIET.
Elephants Furnish the Finest Sport, but
They are Very Hard to Kill.
A PARADISE FOR MERRY spORTSMEN

OF big game, which he tells, upon occasions,
with the unostentatious zest of the true
sportsman. Contrary to the habit of most
African hunters, he neither deals in the
marvellous nor the heroic.
"As for iions," said he, few days ago, to
Sun reporter, "you don't run across them
every day, you know, even though the Ma
sal consider them sacred and never kill
them. They are plentiful enough-far too
plentiful for the good OF the edible game of
the land, and even for the safety Of the peo-
pie. But they keep very quiet in their
jungle strongholds, and it is only by chance
you now and then run across them. If I
had been after lions particularly, no doubt
the natives, who know their ways, could
have found me their hiding places. As it
was Twas in Africa for elephants, and did
not look for more lions than I met by the
way. Lions were all round camp, however,
every night. We could not see them, for
they kept well outside the line of camp
fires, but we constantly heard them. They
made most peculiar noise The lions cry
is not the thunderous roar that people think.
Imagine noise resembling grunt, and vet
with something OF the dignity of a roar. and
",
however, the lions disappear.
UNNERvED BY A ROYAL BEAST.
"Once had such a chance as very seldom
offers to sportsman, and I lost it because
of an attack of genuine buck fever-lion
fever suppose you might term it in this
case. might have bagged five lions on the
spot If it hadn't been for that. I was beat
ing through heavy jungle, my biggest En-
gllsh express on my arm, and some of my
people behind carrying other loaded weap-
ons to hand me in case of need. was after
an elephant. I broke through mass of ex-
ceptionally heavy brush, and suddenly
found myself on the verge of a precipice.
while I was studying the lay of the
land huge tawny head with flowing name
hoped up out of the grass opposite, and the
back of great lion became visible. He
did not see me. At the same time caught
sight of huge ioness and presently made
out three nearly grown cubs. They were all
in the grass, all in short range and all easy
prey. 1 had no excuse whatever for fear,
because not one of them, if enraged, could
leap that chasm in the teeth of a rifle. and 1
had plenty of good rifles close by in the
hands of my men. But the unexpected
chance upset me. I became most unrea-
sohably excited. 1 fired at the big one with
my big express, and, without any possible
excuse for it, missed him. My men passed
me up rifle alter rifle, but got more ratified
at every miss, and the lions all got away. 1t
was most disagreeable, not to say disgust
ing, experience.
ELEPHANTS THE BEST GAME.
''The elephant is, OF course, the finest
game in the world. have shot elephants
before, on a hunt through South Africa, but
1 met with wholly new experiences in the
East. The South African hunting grounds
are an open country, and you pursue your
game on horseback. You can follow him
where you will, even at times into his secret
hiding places; pursue him when he flies and
escape when he charges. Your horse does
all that for you, and you have only to watch
your chances and manage your rifle. But
in the wilds of the East coast, in a land
choked with brush and jungle, covered with
huge forests and furrowed with ravines and
water courses, you hunt your elephant afoot,
and must shoot to the point, or he will escape
you in the thick recesses of the wilderness,
which he, with his enormous strength and
great weight, can penetrate on the run,
while the hunter is hindered at every step.
''In addition to the difficulties of this sort
of shooting and its attendant probabilities of
losing your game, this sport is rendered
more uncertain because the elephant of East
Africa offers you only three vulnerable
shots. You have no fatal shot whatever
from dead in front. You can, from stand
point more or less to one side, penetrate his
temple near his eye and kill him; or you
can, from good side position, hit him at
point ON his body just back Of the flap of his
ear and enter his lungs; or else, from be-
ing back to one side of his tail, where it will
glance along his spine and down into the
lungs. But these are the only shots from
which you can hope for success.
VERY HARD TO KILL.
"I put nearly 100 shots into one elephant
before brought him down. He did not
offer me fatal shot, and you can't travel
round much in that thicket to secure favor
able positions for yourself. In one case
exhausted all my English expresses and all
,hy Winchesters, and had to take to the
rifles which my men were armed with. I
only killed two elephants by single shots.
One of these, a 12.tooter L brought down by
a single bullet in the temple. The other
one shot behind the flap of the ear, pene-
trating his lungs and dropping him on his
knees.
"There is no question about the fact that
the Nasal country is the finest shooting
ground in the world. Enormous tracts OF
it have never echoed to the sound of rifle or
gun. But not only that. The sole inhab-
itants OF the land, the warlike and ferocious
Nasal, never kill the beasts that literally
fill the country. 1t is true that the Nasal
are wholly q fesh-eating people, but they
kill only domestic cattle. They DO not
raise them much themselves, either, but
constantly make raids upon neighboring
people, often hundreds of miles away, and
capture and bring home enormous droves.
When they kill their cattle the Nasal love
to put their mouths to the wounds made in
the animals necks, and gorge themselves
with the hot blood.
FRESH MEAT PLENTIFUL.
"But they never kill game The ele-
phant roams at will near their towns. The
lion preys upon their people. The rhinoce-
roses take possession of their villages in
droves and rub their sides against the
shanties unharmed. Antelopes and zebras
in enormous numbers live seemingly only
to provide food for the lions, and giraffes
scour the occasional plains and feed in the
thickets in countless herds. These beasts
have not learned to fear man. The rhinoce-
ros charges at him in pure sport, the lion |
leaps upon him as his prey, and the eIe-
phant notices him only to attack him when
enraged. You can imagine what that land
is from the fact that the Nasal have held it
for such ages that they have worn trails
eight inches deep in the solid rock with
their naked feet, and during all that time |
have never Intentionally killed a native |
beast. II saw one zebra there saw TO-
600, and the antelopes, Glands, giraffes,
rhlnoceroses and other game were absolutely
beyond estimate. I, unaided, could have