The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-11-23
A SOUTH AFRICAN LION HUNT
ITPRISONED BY THE BOERS IN
 JOHANNESBURG.
or to the Island of Kau-Face to Face With n Man-Eator in the Open--Sou- venirs of the Chase.

It was during the early winter of 1S9-
 that l had my first experience in hunt
 ing large game in Africa. Although
 had been resident of South Africa fo
 several years, my duties as mining en
 glneer in the employ of the DeBeer
 Mining Company had taken up all m.
 time, with the exception of a few ,.'off'
 days spent in the veldt country of th'
 Transvaal hunting African gazelle ant
 their much larger cousins, oryx. While
 l had managed on one occasion to bring
 down two of the former diminutiv'
 creatures Out little larger than al
 American jack-rabbit), was never able
 to get within rifle shot of the wary
 oryx.
 For number of years a feeling oi
 discomfort had been manifest among tha
 foriegn or "Uitlander" population of the
 Dutch republic, caused by the passage
 of obnoxious laws by the Boers. This feeling finally resulted in a half hearted
 instruction, during which pr. Jameson
 of the British army made his since fam
 ous raid into the Transvaal which re-
 sulted-in the death of some fifty Boers
 and twice that number of English sol
 diers. Although I had always had
 much sympathy for the original set
 tiers of the Transvaal, my surroundings
 at the time were such that I was forced
 to take part in the uprising, and as a
 result was incarcerated in the grim,
 one-story prison at Johannesburg for
 several days. When, through the in-
 fiuence of friends I was liberated, at
 first thought of returning to the United
 States, but as mining engineers were
 then scarce in South Africa, the com
 pany at last induced me to remain agre
 ing to send me out of the Transvaal at once upon a prospecting tour into the
 wilds of Central Africa.
 Making up caravan or "kafila," as it is called there, for the purpose of penetrating the wilderness, is by no means small undertaking. First and foremost in importance is the selection of competent and faithful guides and attendants. I managed to get together a party of twenty, composed of two white men (myself and an Englishman by the name of Wilson, who was to take direct charge of kafila), twelve Mata- beles, five Kaffirs and an old Zulu, by name Gan Liba (which soon shortened into Gan), who was said to be remark ably expert in hunting large game. He was a striking fellow, several inches above six feet in height, straight as an arrow, his chest back, and limbs covered with punches of muscles as hard as bone. He was a leopard-hunt- CT by profession and for many years had made a business of ridding the country of these troublesome pests.
 We left Johannesburg in the latter part of April, with instruction to pro- ceed by rail to Port Lorenzo where small coasting steamer had been chart cred to take us to the mouth of the Zambesi River, Mozambique. We were to follow this stream inland for about three hundred miles, then move north to Lake Bangweolo, latitude ten de- grees ten minutes south, thence along the eastern border of the Congo Free State ten degrees, and then east to the coast, striking some of the many small trading posts between Cape Delgado and Zanzibar whence we could embark for home. Tn addition to our arms, we had six cames, twenty donkeys, and twen- ty-six ponies, also one thousand five hundred pounds of "gee," one thousand five hundred pounds of rice, large assortment of cooking-pots, water casks, and condensers, and several hundred small trinkets for presents In due time we were aboard the steam CT, and after very rough journey of nearly a weeks duration, were landed | ''bag and baggage" upon the barren shores of Mozambique, mile north of the Zambesi
 This is indeed a most desolate coun- ! try; the Zambesi and it's f1ats-a broad | ribbon of silver and green, bordered here and there by black cliffs-split the des- ert from east to west. To the north and as far east as far as the eye can reach stretches a waste of mesa-land; sand cactus, sand, black rock, and more sand-sand that dazzles the eye like snow, with here and there a cluster of palms and jungle grass which indi- cate where periodical springs rise out of the blistering earth to greet Mother zambesi To the east is the ceaseless wash of the quiet sea, with it's short reefs of gray coral, shining white in the eternal sunshine, and over all a dreary leathlike stiffness, broken only when the deadly simeon sweeps the sand in clouds from the north burying all DeIOrR It. W6SlWdIu ONGT he dreary waste of desert, one could hardly believe that but few hundred niles away was a land second to none n point of fertility.
 One evening in the latter part of May we encamped upon the outskirts of a vadi of unusual size, pitching our tents rear large spring, the water of which vas as clear as crystal and very cool. Is it was already dark when we had inished supper, I omitted my usual vening stroll and prepared to retire 1t once, informing the men that we 7 would remain over here for at least lay, the animals needing rest badly :, fter their long pull through the sand. |. The camels had been driven in and | 1ade to lie down in q circle, when they Z ,ere secured by the tying up of a fore '. sg. Around the fire my native men : heir number increased by two we had icked up belonging to a neighboring q ilage, sat cheerfully eating their dates nd rice. The starlight shone dimly V Il the long necks and misshapen backs , f the camels, and showed faintly the i oitary, white-clad figure of the sent v as he stood at the outskirts of the : amp, grooming to himself a mournful latapele song. Soon the men mad tin