The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1901-08-28
LIONS AND AN AUTOMOBILE.
A South African Sketch.



first was brought into the country by
young English ranchman, named AL
beYt Hill.
In addition to its tank twenty-gal-
Ion can of gasoline or oil was Trans
ported. which for time added materi-
ally to the weight of the outfit. Hill
himself, however, weighed not more
than 116 pounds; and his entire out
fit. excluding fuel, was kept down to
less than 80 pounds. The young ranch
man possessed 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
Hilrs method in these eXigencies was
to wade across in advance, and pull the
automobile over with line
A little after sunset one evening,
while he was passing beneath some
mabolo trees, a leopard attempted to
drop upon him. but miscalculated his
speed and landed in the road behind.
The animal was as much disgusted,
either with its i'll 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 skrted. a
buffalo charged out after him. For
fifty 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 a little
past noon one day he was crossing a
kind of grassy marsh. In the wet sea-
son 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 h,1 small motor carriage, was
putting Forward at fair rate of speed
anc approaching the fringe of wood.
SuGdcnly the underbrush immediate
lv ahead teemed with antlered heads,
and the next moment the solitary scout
found himself in the midst of herd
of duiker-bok, not fleeing from him,
but rushing upon him, running madly
out into the open marsh. AS many as
200 of the animals dashed bs him as
he was passing through the thin fringe
of trees.
In his astonishment at this uneX-
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 forty
yards away stood a number of large
lions that had evidently been stalking
the duiker-bok. He had hardly taken
in this startling sight, when he heard
a tremendous roar little way to the
left, and saw another lion even bigger
than the others that had just killed
a buck, and was standing over its prey
There was no time to unstrap his
carbine, no time for anything. The in
stinct which prompts the locomotive
driver, when he sees a 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 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 45 degrees or
less its top lodged in another smaller
tree which had arrested it's fall, and
acted as prop to hold it up. He made
a dash for this inclined tree, and rar
up 10 or 90 feet to where a large
branch rose certically. Twisting his
body nimbly around this branch, Hill
glanced back to see what the lions
were doing,
Luckily for him, they were being en-
tertalned 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 automo-
bile Meie somewhat laughable. The
hard shove to left which 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
waddled its way merrily over them, de-
scribing a circle and coming round
again. as If looking for its master and
loath to leave him behind.
The lions were clearly mystifed,
alike from what they saw, heard and
smelled. They backed off ard came
round in the rear of the machine, eye
ing 1t with doubt and disfaVor. When
1t turned they doubled to the rear of
II again; and the big lion with the
buck, when he saw 1t coming in his
direction. seized his prey in his mouth,
and with an angry growl bounded of
out of the track Of the queer monstros-
ity. Then he stood up and roared
again.
Two Of the other lions were not fully
grown. Apparently they did not quite