The Sauk Centre herald., 1909-06-10

4H&NXAa6 and good luck, but
H2 great many who are
absolutely worthless.
In addition to 9TH
ers, l have always had one man, Abb
dulla Ashur, as head shikari. Besides
being an agreeable companion, he is
far and away the best finder of game
have ever seen in the country.
His pluck is undeniable, and the
only difficulty l have had with
him is to prevent him going
where did not care to go myself.
This may sound exaggerated praise of
native, but among other things he
grappled lion which had knocked me
down, being severely mauled before
he got the brute off, so that I natur-
ally entertain a very high opinion of
him. Owing to his skill in tracking
/ have only lost one wounded lion out
of many that were hit, and that was
not his fault, as the blood stopped al
most directly and the ground was
nothing but stones for miles. This
speaks for itself, as any one who has
shot lions knows how difficult it is to
recover a wounded beast without dogs.
l only once had the help of dogs
after wounded lions. We were camped
. down in the Haud among the Eidegall
villages under Sultan Deria. One day
l went out to try to get some meat
for the natives, accompanied by war
rior called Hassan and his pony.
had just shot an oryx, and we were
cutting it up, when the smallest So
mali | have ever seen came running
up to say he had just observed five
lions asleep under a tree close by.
This man belonged to the low-caste
tribe of Midgans-people who do not
live together in one tribe, but are
scattered all over Somaliland in differ
ent villages, where they are chiefly
engaged in killing antelope for meat,
other SomaliS, as rule, thinking it
below their dignity to do anything but
go out occasionally on looting expedi-
tions. Midgans are armed with bows
and poisoned arrows, and each of
them carries a knife. Until quite
lately no other Somali would use a
bow, but now it is quite a common
thing to meet native belonging to
another tribe who has discarded his
spears for a bow and culver of
poisoned arrows.
Shooting Lions with Poisoned
Arrows.
Lions are occasionally killed by
Midgans, but the poison on the arrows
cannot be very strong, as frequently,
after being sick two or three times,
the lion seems to recover and get
away. Captain Swayne gives an ac-
count of the way in which these Mid
gans hunt the oryx with their dogs.
But to get on with my story. The
little Midgan carried a bow nearly as
long as himself and was followed by
about dozen small native dogs with
curly sterns and prick ears. These
little ours were wonderfully broken
The man trotted off in front of us,
and when he got near the place where
he had seen the lions he simply put
out his hand, and all the dogs lay
down in a bunch and never attempted
to follow on after us. Then We stalked
carefully towards big thorn tree ris.
ing above the bush. This was where
the lions were said to be. The bush
was very open, and when we came in
sight of the tree the lions were just
decamping. There were four of them,
not five-an old lioness and three
lions, perhaps not quite full grown,
and with very little name. Hassan
had followed close behind on his pony,
so I shouted to him to try and keep
his eye on the lioness, and ran on my
self with Abdulla after one of the
lions. This one did not seem much
inclined to run, and after a short
burst l managed to get bullet into
him somewhere just as he disappeared
into some thick bushes
At that moment we caught sight of
another lion trotting along parallel to
us about 200 yards of. The wounded
one was keeping up continuous low
, growing in the bushes, so, thinking
he would not get tar away, we ran to
cut off the other. He turned off when
he caught sight of us, and We had a
long, stern chase after him, as a re-
suit of which I was SO blown I could
not hit him, although he was lobbing
along not more than 100 yards ahead.
At last I did get bullet into his
flank He at once turned, and, growl-
ing fiercely, came bounding few
yards towards us, as If trying to make
up his mind to charge. Whether he
would have done so or not do not
know, as my second barrel caught him
on the point of the shoulder, bringing
him on to his nose, and before he
could recover himself put in another
bullet from my second rifle and fin
ished him.
It is more tnan likely he would not
have charged, as have several times
seen a lion make this kind Of demon
stration when slightly hit, more,
think, to try to frighten his assailant
than anything else. A lion that really