The Washington times., 1901-07-14
AN AUTOMOBILE MISHAP.
Strange Adventure of a Traveller in
South Africa.
Chased in n HOrselcss Carriage by
Several Lions, the vehicle Mystifies
the wild Beasts-An Exciting Fight
in n Tree md Narrow Escape.


! in South Africa that it is not subject 10
the fatal horse sickness, or to the raw
| ages of the tsetse fly AS yet, however
horseless carriages are not very numer-
{, Gus there. One of the first was brought
! into country by a young English
| ranchman named Albert HIN.
| In addition to it's tank a twenty gallon
| can of gasoline or oil was transported
| which for a time added materially to the
weight of the outfit. Hill himself how
| ever, weighed not more than 116 pounds;
and his entire outfit, excluding fuel, was
| kept down to less than fifty pounds. The
| young ranchman possessed the nimble-
ness 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 au-
| tomobile over with a line
| little after sunset one evening, while
he was passing beneath some maboIo
trees, a leopard attempted to drop on
| him, but miscalculated his speed and
! landed in the road behind The animal
| was so much disgusted, either with its
| i'll success, or with the gaseous odor OF
| the machine that it sneaked away with
out further effort to modest the ranch
| man.
At another time, while he was passing
a swamp which the road skirted, a buf-
| falo charged out after him. For fifty
| yards 1t was nearly drawn race when
the motor carriage showed the better
| speed and pulled away.
These, however were but unimportant
| incidents, soon over The real adventure
nf he 81.
| Mashonaland He was now in a tract of
| country which was remote from settlers
| ranches. At a little past noon one day
he was crossing a 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 pane
| 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 Hi
| called his small motor-carriage, was puff
ing forward at fair rate of speed and
approaching the fringe of wood
Suddenly the undeTbrush Immediately
ahead teemed with antlered heads, and
the next moment the solitary scout found
himself in the midst of a herd of duiker-
box, not fleeing from him, but rushing
upon him, running madly out into the
open marsh. AS many as 200 of the ami
mails dashed by him as he was passing
through the thin fringe of trees.
In his astonishment at this unexpected
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 forty yards away stood
number of large lions that had evident
ly been stalking the duiker-bok He had
hardly taken in this startling sight, when
he heard a tremendous roar a little way
to the left. and saw another lion even
bigger than the ott ers that had just kill
ed buck, and vas standing over its
prey.
There was no time to unstrap his car
bine, no time for anything. The instinct
which prompts the locomotive driver.
when he sees a head-on collision 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 to
get into the fringe of timber, and climb
tree; but he had already passed most
of the trees. The nearest was a large old
trunk that had fallen partly over and
lay at an angle of forty-five degrees or
less, its top lodged in another smaller
tree which had arrested its fail, and act
ed as a prop to hold IL up. He made a
dash for this incline tree, and ran up fif-
teen or twenty feet to where a 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 en-
tertained by the motor-carriage The ma
chine was stiH going and seemed fully
TO occupy Sheir attention as a new and
very dubious sort of game. The move
ments of the little automobile were some
what laughabIe. The hard shove to left
which Hill had given the steering handle
caused the machine to describe Il vagraut
circuit out on the veidt beyond the trees
There were thorn-bushes. thin, dry grass
and numbers of stone in the open; but the
little Ajax was accustomed 20 such OBJ
structions. and waddled its way merrily
over them. describing a circle and coming
round again. as If looking for it's master
and loath to leave him behind
The lions were clearly mystified, alike
from what they saw, heard, and smelled.
They backed off and came round in the
rear Of the machine, eying it with doubt
and disfavor. When it turned they dcu-
bled to the rear of it again. and the big
lion with the buck when he saw ii COM
ing in his direction, seized his prey in his
mouth and with an angry growl bounded
of out of the track of the queer mon
strosity. Then he stood up and roared
again.
Two of the other lions were not fully
grown. Apparently they did not quite
dare to spring upon the life-like yet mall
odorous creature but kept following it,
charging close up behind it at one mo-
ment. then falling back.
The other larger lions or liOnesses squat
ted at distance in the grass end watched
1t. Stones and bushes were constantly
detecting the direction of the motor-car-
rlage and before long it ran into another
larger bush. or clump of bushes. that
brought it to a standstill, although it con-
tinued putting and pushing at the obstruc-
tion.
For some time the lions watched it, but
grew listless or Indifferent to -he perform
ance and went out toward the black
named lion with the buck He was not
disposed TO divide with them. and greeted
their approach with menacing growls. Nn
four then squatted down to watch him
with snarIs and envious looks and Hill
now made the mistake OF thinking that
he might get down and possess himself
OF his carbine-as he would have TO go no
more than $50 feet, and the lions were
now three times that distance away.
He fancied that the gyratiOns of the
automobile had caused them to forget
him, IT, indeed, they had ever really no.
ticed his escape.
fr.ti,agl