Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1901-09-27
LIONS AND AN
AUTOM OBILE
A SOUTH AFRICAN SKETCH
by B. c. Brigham.
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IL is greatly in favor of the automo-
4 bile in South Africa that it is not
subject to the fatal "horse Sickness"
or to the ravages of the tsetse-Ay. As
yet, however, horseless carriages are
not very numerous there. One of the
first was brought into the country by a
young English ranchman, named AL
bert Hill.
In addition to its tank 20-gallon
can OF gasoline or oil was transported,
which for a time added materially to
the weight of the outfit. Hill himself,
however, weighed not more than 116
pounds; and his entire outfit, exclud-
ing fuel, was kept down to less than
so pounds. The young ranchman pos
sessed the nimbleness which is one of
the advantages of light weight, and
this agility stood him in good stead, as
will be seen.
There were rivers and creeks to be
crossed where there were no bridges.
Hills method in these exigencies was
to wade across in advance, and pull
the automobile over with a line.
A little after sunset one evening,
while he was passing beneath some
mabolo-trees, leopard attempted to
drop upon him, but miscalculated his
speed and landed in the road behind
The animal was so much disgusted,
either with its ill-success, or with the
gaseous odor of the machine, that it
sneaked away without further effort
to molest the ranchman.
At another time, while he was pass
Ing swamp which the road skirted, a
buffalo charged out after him.. For
30 yards it was nearly drawn race,
when the motor-carriage showed the
better speed and pulled away.
These, however, were but unimpor-
tant incidents, soon over; the real ad-
venture of the trip befell Hill after en-
tering Mashonaland. He was now in a
tract of country which was remote
from settlers ranches. At little past
noon one day he was crossing kind
of grassy marsh. In the wet season
such depressions are shallow lakes,
the shores Of which are marked by an
irregular fringe of m'pame trees. The
road was here merely trail over the
beaten-down grass, but there were
neither stones nor logs to obstruct
the traveller; and the Little Ajax, as
Hill called his small motor-carriage,
was putting forward at fair rate Of
speed and approaching the fringe of
wood.
Suddenly the underbrush immedi-
ately ahead teemed with antlered
heads, and the next moment the soli-
tary scout found himself In the midst
OF herd of duiker-bok, not fleeing
from him, but rushing upon him, run
ming madly out into the open marsh.
AS many as 200 Of the animals dashed
by him as he was passing through the
thin fringe of trees.
In his astonishment at this uner.
pected stampede, Hill did not, for the
moment, reflect that the cause Of It
must be near at hand; but the cause
disclosed itself promptly. Not 40 yards
away stood number Of large lions
that had evidently been stalking the
duiker-bok. He had hardly taken In
this startling sight, when he heard
tremendous roar little way to the
left, and saw another lion even bigger
than the others that had just killed
buck, and was standing over its prey.
There was no time to unstrap his
carbine, no time for anything. The
instinct which prompts the locomotive
driver, when he sees head-on col
lision coming, to shut off and jump,
led Hill to give one convulsive shove
at the steering lever and leap clear Of
the vehicle. His idea was tc get into
the fringe of timber and climb tree;
but he had already passed most of the
trees. The nearest was large old
trunk that had fallen partly over and
lay at an angle of 45 degrees or less,
its top lodged in another smaller tree
which had arrested its fall, and acted
as a prop to hold It up. He made
dash for this inclined tree, and ran up
is or 90 feet to where large branch
rose vertically. Twisting his body
nimbly around this branch, Hill
glanced back to see what the lions
were doing.
Luckily for him, they were being
entertained by the motor-carriage.
The machine was still going, and
seemed fully to occupy their attention
as a new and very dubious sort Of
game. The movements of the little
automobile were somewhat laughable.
The hard shove to left wb,ch Hill had
given the steering handle caused the
machine to describe vagrant circuit
out on the weld beyond the trees.
There were thorn-bushes, thin, dry
grass and numbers of stones in the
open; but the Little Ajax was accus-
toned to such distractions, and wad-
died its way merrily over them, de-
scribing circle and coming round