The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-06-30
How DR.. Rainsford Got His First Lion
Noted Preacher Tells of African Hunt---Sat Still in Grass
as Wounded AninaI Bounded Toward Him, Then Fired


In the spring of 1908 the Rev.
DR.. w. S. Rainsford, formerly the
rector of St. Georges Protestant
Episcopal Church, in this city, made
a hunting trip for big game on the
Nzola plateau, in British East Afri-
ca. He recorded his experiences as
they occurred, writing sometimes on
muleback. sometimes during the
MONDAY halts or on rainy days. In
the Worlds Work" he says:
I'VE had made permanent camp
near a fine spring of water and in
most excellent game country, some
twenty miles north of Sergoit. All
through this country the anthills,
some of them of great size, stand
thickly, and the game has a habit of
mounting them and looking around.
Suddenly my Brownie whispered
'Simba,' pointing at a clump of
bushes two hundred yards away; and
I knew that, after long waiting, l
was at least within shooting distance
of a Lion at last. To many a man
such a moment may have come as an
ordinary one, but not so to me. Day
after day, for five long months, I had
never gone out hunting in the early
morning without hoping and longing
to find myself face to face with the
finest beast in the world, the lion of
British East Africa. 80
'One hundred and seventy yards
in front of the bush we crouched, IN
der a bushy screen of thorn stretched
for twenty or thirty yards. Beyond
that rose a wide, low, red anthill, and
round the warm, sunny, bare base
of it there seemed to be a buff col
ored, yellowish mass. The intervening
thorns hid the crown of the anthill,
and anything there might be on it
was invisible to me, but the fawn-
colored mass at the base just showed
movement to the naked eye, and
through the glass I saw legs and tails
and yellow TANKS and heads all
pressed together, as that great cat
family-the lion, his harem and their
offspring-took their pleasure in the
sun.
II made up my mind what I should
do. I knew well, of course, that, If
the wind did give me away, the lions
might just retire behind the ant heap
they were lying On, and then all my
trouble would begin owe again; but
I was not without hope that, when
they got the wind, they would come
forth just for one moment to make
sure, and I staked my all on that. If
hard luck had been mine in my long
waiting, surely fortune would smile
on me at last. ! crawled away from
my men, and sitting up in the grass,
here two feet high, where I could
command the side toward the river,
I rested my elbows on my knees and
waited.
A Moment of Tension.
WAS there a big lion among
them? Would they clear at once?
Or would they wait and make sure?
Would they stand? Would they
charge? I had my tense, glorious
moment surely. l could hear the
painting breath of the two men who
had crawled out after me and were
now crouching beside me. And then,
at the last, fortune smiled on me, in
deed. / saw a movement among the
tawny mass. And slowly, casually,
out Of the bosom Of his family, he
came. And the lion Of my dreams he
seemed. Big and black, with no com
mon blackness, surely the true king
of that wild and beautiful place.
Slowly, on and on, till in the middle
of the narrow, green, grassy aisle he
stood, the SUI shining full on his
magnificent coat, and the dark, rich,
low hanging nan that covered his
shoulders. Then slowly, carelessly,
he turned his bread black head to-
ward me and shifted the tainted air
that drifted down to him over the
dewy grass. Who shall attempt to
describe the feelings Of the nan who,
after long waiting, knows, as he
steadily presses the yielding trigger
home, that he is on That triumph
ant instant may be the result of some
dark survival of. barbarism within
him; all the same it is living! 1t is
glorious! 1t was mine, and is part
of me forever.
"A deep grunting oar answered
the shot. and quickly he swung
round his body toward where it came
from Ac hn did ca HrA1 uoru
quickly again, just as fast a. I could
move my Mauser's bolt. Then he
saw me, and with another deep grunt
came straight for where I sat, with
great, long bounds. The distance
from where l sat to where the lion
stood l measured carefully afterward.
1t was ITO yards, and now he came
100 of them faster than I could have
believed it possible for any badly