The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-05-30
LION HUNTING IN AFRICA.
Exciting Adventures Of Sportsman
In SOmaliland.


Bush-Two Specimens Killed At Night
by strate gy-Trails of Wounded Lions.
(From the Badminton Magazine)
So many men FROM England and India
now visit Somal iland for shooting that
the game is continually retreating fur
thor and further from the coast. There
ara still plenty of antelopes, leopards,
pigs, &C., in fairly accessible places: but
districts which only a year or two ago
were full of lions and elephants are now
entirely shot QUITO get anything like a
big bag of lions one must go to tract of
undisturbed country.
The Somalis make excellent camp
servants. have always found them
wonderfully chesry, pleasant people to
deal with, and for natives very trust
worthy. Only once have l had anything
stolen, and then the thief was caught by
my head man before I knew it was mis-
sing.
The Somai like the Arab is nearly al
ways gentleman to talk to, but also,
like the Arat, he is ayarioious and grasp
ing in money matters. Somali born
and bred in Alden as rule has nothing
to recommend him.
To get good sport in SomalIland the
first thing is to find good shikari.
There are excellent men to be found with
care and good luck, but great many
who are absolutely worthless. In addi-
tion to others, have always had one
man, Abdulla Ashur, as head shikari.
Besides being an agreeable companion,
he is far and away the best finder of
game have ever seen in the country.
His pluck is undsniable, and the only
difficulty have had with him is to pre-
vent him going whore did not care to
go myself. This may sound exaggerated
praise of native but among other things
he Rrappled lion which had knocked
me down, being severely mauled before
he got the brute off, so that I naturally
entertain very high opinion of him.
Owing to his skill in tracking, have
only lost one wounded lion out of many
that were hit, and that was not his fault,
as the blood stopped almost directly and
the ground was nothing but stones for
mi les. This speaks for itself, as anyone
who has shot lions knows how difficult it
very often is to recover wounded beast
without dogs.
only once had the help of dogs after
wounded lion. In 1898 T. and 1 were
camped down in the Haud among the
Eidegalla villages under Snltan Deria.
One day I went out to try to get some
meat for the natives. accompanied by
warrior called Hassan, on his pony. /
had just shot an oryx, and we were cut
ting it up, when the smallest Somali 1
have ever seen came running up to say ne
had just observed five lions asleep under
troe close by. This man . onged to
the low-caste tribe Of Midgans-people
who do not live together in one tribe, but
are scattered all over Somaliland in
different villages, where they are chiefly
engaged in killing antelope for meat
other Somalis as rule thinking it be-
meath their dignity to do anything but
go out occasionally on looting expedi-
tioHs. Midgans are armed with bow and
poisoned arrows, and each of them carries
q hhh0s null 4u1pC lotCtJ LIZ OUilfl
Somali would use bow, but now 1t is
quite common thing to meet native
belonging to one of the other tribes who
has discarded his spears for bow and
culver of poisoned arrows.
Lions are occasionally killed by Mid
gans. but the poison on the arrows can
not be very strong, as frequently, after
being sick two or three times, the HoD
seems to recover snd get away. Capt.
SWayne gives an account of the way in
which these Midgans hunt the oryx with
thoir dogs. But to get on with my story.
The little Midgan carried bow nearly as
long as himself, aud was followed by
about dozen small native dogs with
curly sterns and prick ears. These little
ours were wonderfully broken. The
man trotted off in front of US, and W hen
he got near the place where he had ssen
and all the dogs lay down in buno
and never attempted to follow on after
US. Then we stalked carefully toward
big thorn tree rising above the bush.
This was where the lions were said to
De. The bush was very open, and when
we came in sight of the tree the lions
were just decamping. There were four
of Them, not five-an old lioness, and
thres lions perhaps not quite full grown,
and with very little name.
Hassan had followed behind on his
pony so shouted to him to try to keep
his eye on the lioness, ran on myself
with Ahdulla after one Of the lions. This
one did not seem much inclined to run,
and after a short burst managed to get
a bullet into him somewhere just as he
disappeared into some thick bushes.
At that moment we caught sight of an
other lion trotting along parallel to US
about two hundred yards off. The
wounded one was keeping up continu-
Gus low growing in the bushes, SO,
thinking he would not get far away, we
ran to cut off the other. He turned off
when be caught sight of US, and we had
n long, stern chase after him, as result
OF which I was so blown could not bit
MN, althOuph ha WINS lohEipo al0np not