The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-10-12


 in dozens, to surround a piece of open bush or grass country, perhaps a couple of miles square. It is fired in several places at once round the outer edge, and the sportsmen stand by to await the escaping animals, which, as the natives are huddled in a dense ring on every side, seldom escape with out at least a wound. Occasionally lengths of coarse bark rope netting are begged down. and should beast come blundering into them there Is little i hope for him, as he is at once assailed with dozen spear thrusts and axe blows while entangled. I was once in- vited by natives to attend one of these "mchiri'' hunts, as they call them, and was promised great sport at "hot cor ner."
 An immense rabble of men and dogs turned out and surrounded big tract five or six miles--of open brush con- taining a goodly number of larger forest trees and some rocky gorges, notorious for holding leopard and wild pig. had gun In case anything alarming bolted my way. but excited the disgust of my native hosts by firing at nothing all day, The idea was to slay any beast that tried to bolt, and then follow in at once on the hot em- bers of the fire to look for leopards, which finding themselves surrounded 1 by flames or by men an dogs will sometimes take refuge in the higher branches of big tree, and wait till the I fire has passed But the whole thing was a failure. We saw nothing but d pig and couple of duiker, which es- capped and the head man, apologizing to me afterwards for the flasco, said: T am surprised at our failure This is an excellent place, and we always kill much game, Last year we killed two leopards and lion, and they killed two of us, It was the sport of men," Immense damage was done by these "mchtrs.'' The males and the more powerful animals break through the nets or the men and escape, but the females and young are slaughtered wholesale, as they fall an easier prey, once came across q hastily deserted camp in the forest near where such a hunt had taken place, and found thirty seven skulls lying about all of young and female antelope, duiker, reedbuck, waterbuck, kudu, and eland
 A very common way of taking game without trouble is by that most general and most ancient of traps, the pitfall, It is usually about twelve feet deep. and may or may not have sharpened stakes or spears set in the V-shaped bottom of 1t to impale any animal which may fall In. have seen series of these pits dug at intervals of twenty mile long, with a rough. strong fence of boughs butt between so that ani- mals must pass over the falls on their way down to the water, and one of the finest kudu ever saw was killed there, In another cage narrow openings had heen left in q similar fence, and at each opening was set q moose attached to a stout young sapling As the beast nosed It's way through, the sapling flew back and drew the rope upright around l It's neck It was 1ot a sporting trap, that. The horned males would merely be caught by the muz2le, and at once draw themselves free while only the hornless females and young would be fairly caught by the neck and strang- led, Among nativesf who live beside a lake or stream great damage is done to the crops during the night by hippo, and 1t is usual to dig pitfalls in the track of the beasts between the water 1 and the maize garden or rice field. As l these tracks are often the only way | through the dense undergrowth such l falls make an excellent "booby-trap'' for the unsuspecting white man, and one whom I know was only saved from being impaled on several spears at the bottom by his rife tanning across the 1 hole.
 No systematic efforts are made to kill out carnivora, even near the settlements. Fatallsm Is too deeply engrained in them for that, and 1t Is only when they are driven to desperation by the re- peated raids of lion on a village when they do not know whose turn 1t i may be next--that they will turn out and try to account for the beast. Some tribes will rather desert a pestered vil- | lage than track down a man-eating 1 lion to It's lair. Occasionally, however. 1 one meets with foolhardly courage, as l in the case of an old head-man. I | knew, who, angered at the loss of a brother overnight, went off alone and unnoticed next morning to spoor up the | lion, which he shot dead with an arrow as it slept over the half-eaten corpse. | He deserved a better fate for his bravery, but that same night the lions mate broke into his hut and mauled him so terribly that he died, after in- | fiicting some fatal blows with an axe on his assailant. Leopards are more often killed if they persistently steal the village goats, and the young bloods of an Angonl village will sometimes turn out in force to hunt one. On such l occasions it is a point of honor not to use a spear, but to beat the animal to death with knob-kerries. Few casual ties happen The beast is kept from att tacking any particular man by being struck on ever side at once, and, with blows raining on him thick all around he Is soon finished. One which I skin ned was heavily bruised all over the body, and had the skull pounded to jelly.--London Field.
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