The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-07-04
A HUNTER or LIONS.
Some of His Experiences in Africa.
from Badminton MaQazlne1

~ many men lIOHl England ana In
dia now visit Somaliland for shooting
that the game Is continually retreating
further and further from the coast.
There are still plenty of antelopes, leo
pards, pigs, etc, In fairly accessible
places; but districts which only q year
or two ago were full of lions and ela-
plants are now entirely shut QUITO
get anything like a big bag of lions one
must go to tract of undisturbed
country.
The Somalis make excellent camp
servants. l have always found them
wonderfully CHEEKY, pleasant people to
deal with, and for natives very trust
worthy. Only once have l had any
thing stolen, and then the thief was
caught by my head man before knew
1t was missing.
The Somali, like the Arab, is nearly
always a gentleman to talk to, but
also, like the Arab, he is avaricious
and grasping in money matters. A So
mali born and bred in Alden as a rule
has nothing to recommend him
To get good sport in Somaliland the
first thing is to find a good shikari.
There are excellent men to be found
with care and good luck, but great
many who are absolutely worthless.
In addition 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 undeniable,
and the only difficulty have had with
him is to prevent him going where I
did not care to go myself. This may
sound exaggerated praise of a native,
but among other things he grappled a
lion which had knocked me down, be-
ing severely mauled before he got the
brute off, so that / naturally entertain
a 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
miles. This speaks for itself, as any
one who has shot lions knows how diff
ficult it very often is to recover a
wounded beast without dogs.
/ only once had the help of dogs at
ter a wounded lion. In 1893 t and
the Eidegalla villages under Sultan
Deria. One day I went out to try to
get some meat for the natives, accom-
panied by a warrior called IIassan, on
his pony I had just shot an oryx. and
we We're cutting it UP, when the small
est Somali I had ever seen came run
ming UP to say he had just observed
five lions asleep under a tree close by.
This man belonged to the low-caste
tribe Of 'Midgans-p who do not
live together in one tribe, but are scat
tered all over Somaliland In different
villages, where they are chiefly en-
gagged in killing antelope for meat,
other Somalis as a rule thinking it be-
meath their dignity to do anything but
go out occasionally on footing expedi-
tions. Midgans are armed with bows
and poisoned arrows, and each of them
carries knife. Until quite lately no
other Somal would use a bow, butnow
1t is quite common thing to meet a
native belonging to one Of the ether
tribes who has discarded his spears for
q bow and culver of poisoned arrows.
Linns are occasionally killed By Mid
gans, but the poison on the arrows
cannot be very strong, as frequently,
after being sick two or three times. the
lion seems to recover and get away.
Captain Swayne gives an account Of
the way in which these Midgans hunt
the oryx with their dogs. But to get
on with my story. The little Midgan
carried a bow nearly as long as him
self, and was followed by about a doz-
en- native dogs with curly sterns ana
prick ears. These little ours were won
derfully broken. The man trotted off
in front of us, and when he got near
the place where he had seen the lions
he simply put out his hand, and all the
dogs lay down in a bunch and never
attempted to follow on after us. Then
we stalked carefully toward big
thorn tree rising above the bush. This
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 fye-an old lioness, and
three lions perhaps not quite full
grown, and with very little name.
Hassan had followed close behind on
his pony SO / shouted to him to try TO
keep his eye on the lioness, and ran on
myself with Abdulla, after one of the
lions. This one did not seem much in
clined to run, and after short burst I
managed to get a bullet into him some
where just as he disappeared into some
thick bushes.
At that moment we caught sight Of
another lion trotting along parallel TO
us about two hundred yards off. The
wounded one was keeping up a contin-
uous low growing in the bushes, so,
thinking he would not get far away,
we ran to cut off the other He turned
off when he caught sight of us, and we
had long, stern chase after him, as a
result of which 7 was SO blown I could
not hit him, although he was lobbing
along not more than a hundred yards
ahead. At last did get bullet in his
flank. He at once turned and, growl-
ing fiercely, came bounding a few
yards towards us as if trying to make
up his mind to charge Whether he
would have done so or not I do not
know. as my second barrel caught him
on the point of the shoulder, bringing
him on to his nose and before he could
recover himself I put in another bullet
from my second rifle and finished him.
1t is more than likely he would not
have charged, as have several times
seen a lion make this kind of demon
stration when slightly hit, more, l
think, to try to frighten shis assailant
than anything else. A lion that really
means charging comes up quite silent