Hunting the Lions

About an hour after resuming their walk, the major went off in hot pursuit of an enormous bee, which he saw humming round a bush. About the same time, Wilkins fell behind to examine one of the numerous plants that were constantly distracting his attention, so that our hero was left for a time to hunt alone with the natives. He was walking a considerable distance in advance of them when he came to a dense thicket which was black as midnight, and so still that the falling of a leaf might have been heard. Tom Brown surveyed the thicket quietly for a few seconds, and observing the marks of some large animal on the ground, he beckoned to the Caffre who carried his spare double-barrelled gun. Up to this date our hero had not shot any of the large denizens of the African wilderness, and now that he was suddenly called upon to face what he believed to be one of them, he acquitted himself in a way that might have been expected of a member of the Brown family! He put off his shoes, cocked his piece, and entered the thicket alone—the natives declining to enter along with him. Coolly and very quietly he advanced into the gloomy twilight of the thicket, and as he went he felt as though all the vivid dreams and fervid imaginings about lions that had ever passed through his mind from earliest infancy were rushing upon him in a concentrated essence! Yet there was no outward indication of the burning thoughts within, save in the sparkle of his dark brown eye, and the flush of his brown cheek. As he wore a brown shooting-coat, he may be said to have been at that time Brown all over!

He had proceeded about fifty yards or so when, just as he turned a winding in the path, he found himself face to face with an old buffalo-bull, fast asleep, and lying down not ten yards off. To drop on one knee and level his piece was the work of an instant, but unfortunately he snapped a dry twig in doing so. The eyes of the huge brute opened instantly, and he had half risen before the loud report of the gun rang through the thicket. Leaping up, Tom Brown took advantage of the smoke to run back a few yards and spring behind a bush, where he waited to observe the result of his shot. It was more tremendous then he had expected. A crash on his right told him that another, and unsuspected, denizen of the thicket had been scared from his lair, while the one he had fired at was on his legs snuffing the air for his enemy. Evidently the wind had been favourable, for immediately he made a dead-set and charged right through the bush behind which our hero was concealed. Tom leaped on one side; the buffalo-bull turned short round and made another dash at him. There was only the remnant of the shattered bush between the two; the buffalo stood for a few seconds eyeing him furiously, the blood streaming down its face from a bullet-hole between the two eyes, and its head garnished with a torn mass of the bush. Again it charged, and again Tom, unable to get a favourable chance for his second barrel, leaped aside and evaded it with difficulty. The bush was now trampled down, and scarcely formed a shadow of a screen between them; nevertheless Tom stood his ground, hoping to get a shot at the bull’s side, and never for a single instant taking his eye off him. Once more he charged, and again our hero escaped. He did not venture, however, to stand another, but turned and fled, closely followed by the infuriated animal.

A few yards in front the path turned at almost right angles. Tom thought he felt the hot breath of his pursuer on his neck as he doubled actively round the corner. His enemy could neither diverge from nor check his onward career; right through a fearfully tangled thicket he went, and broke into the open beyond, carrying an immense pile of rubbish on his horns. Tom instantly threw himself on his back in the thicket to avoid being seen, and hoped that his native followers would now attract the bull’s attention, but not one of them made his appearance, so he started up, and just as the disappointed animal had broken away over the plain, going straight from him, he gave him the second barrel, and hit him high up on the last rib on the off side, in front of the hip. He threw up his tail, made a tremendous bound in the air, dashed through bush-thorns so dense and close that it seemed perfectly marvellous how he managed it, and fell dead within two hundred yards.

Note. If the reader should desire fuller accounts of such battles, we recommend to him African Hunting, a very interesting work, by W.C. Baldwin, Esquire, to whom, with Dr Livingstone, Du Chaillu, and others, I am indebted for most of the information contained in this volume,—R.M.B.

The moment it fell the natives descended from the different trees in which they had taken refuge at the commencement of the fray, and were lavish in their compliments; but Tom, who felt that he had been deserted in the hour of need, did not receive these very graciously, and there is no saying how far he might have proceeded in rebuking his followers (for the Brown family is pugnacious under provocation) had not the major’s voice been heard in the distance, shouting, “Hallo! look out! a buffalo! where are you, Tom Brown, Wilkins?”

“Hallo!” he added, bursting suddenly into the open where they were standing, “what’s this—a—buffalo? dead! Have ’ee killed him? why, I saw him alive not two minutes—”

His speech was cut short by a loud roar, as the buffalo he had been in chase of, scared by the approach of Wilkins, burst through the underwood and charged down on the whole party. They fled right and left, but as the brute passed, Wilkins, from the other side of the open, fired at it and put a ball in just behind the shoulder-blade. It did not fall, however, and the three hunters ran after it at full speed, Wilkins leading, Tom Brown next, and the major last. The natives kept well out of harm’s way on either side; not that they were unusually timid fellows, but they probably felt that where such able hands were at work it was unnecessary for them to interfere!

As the major went racing clumsily along—for he was what may be called an ill-jointed man, nevertheless as bold as a lion and a capital shot—he heard a clatter of hoofs behind him, and, looking over his shoulder, observed another buffalo in full career behind. He stopped instantly, took quick aim at the animal’s breast, and fired, but apparently without effect. There chanced to be a forked tree close at hand, to which the major rushed and scrambled up with amazing rapidity. He was knocked out of it again quite as quickly by the shock of the tremendous charge made by the buffalo, which almost split its skull, and rolled over dead at the tree-root, shot right through the heart.

Meanwhile Tom Brown and the lieutenant had overtaken and killed the other animal, so that they returned to camp well laden with the best part of the meat of three buffaloes.

Here, while resting after the toils of the day, beside the roaring camp-fires, and eating their well-earned supper, Hicks the trader told them that a native had brought news of a desperate attack by lions on a kraal not more than a day’s journey from where they lay.

“It’s not far out o’ the road,” said Hicks, who was a white man—of what country no one knew—with a skin so weather-beaten by constant exposure that it was more like leather than flesh; “if you want some sport in that way, I’d advise ’ee to go there to-morrow.”

“Want some sport in that way!” echoed Wilkins in an excited tone; “why, what do you suppose we came here for? Of course we’ll go there at once; that is, if my comrades have no objection.”

“With all my heart,” said the major with a smile as he carefully filled his beloved pipe.

Tom Brown said nothing; but he smoked his pipe quietly, and nodded his head gently, and felt a slight but decided swelling of the heart, as he murmured inwardly to himself, “Yes, I’ll have a slap at the lions to-morrow.”

Chapter Three.

In which Great Deeds are Done, and Tom Brown has a Narrow Escape

But Tom was wrong. Either the report had been false, or the lions had a special intimation that certain destruction approached them; for our hunters waited two nights at the native kraal without seeing one, although the black king thereof stoutly affirmed that they had attacked the cattle enclosures nearly every night for a week past, and committed great havoc.

One piece of good fortune, however, attended them, which was that they unexpectedly met with the large party which the major had expressed his wish to join. It consisted of about thirty men, four of whom were sportsmen, and the rest natives, with about twenty women and children, twelve horses, seventy oxen, five wagons, and a few dogs; all under the leadership of a trader named Hardy.

Numerous though the oxen were, there were not too many of them, as the reader may easily believe when we tell him that the wagons were very large, clumsy, and heavily laden,—one of them, besides other things, carrying a small boat—and that it occasionally required the powers of twenty oxen to drag one wagon up some of the bad hills they encountered on the journey to the Zulu country.

The four sportsmen, who were named respectively Pearson, Ogilvie, Anson, and Brand, were overjoyed at the addition to the party of Tom Brown and his companions, the more so that Tom was a doctor, for the constitutions of two of them, Ogilvie and Anson, had proved to be scarcely capable of withstanding the evil effects of the climate. Tom prescribed for them so successfully that they soon regained their strength; a result which he believed, however, was fully as much due to the cheering effects of the addition to their social circle as to medicine.

Having rested at the kraal a few days, partly to recruit the travellers, and partly to give the lions an opportunity of returning and being shot, the whole band set forth on their journey to the Umveloose river, having previously rendered the king of the kraal and his subjects happy by a liberal present of beads, brass wire, blue calico, and blankets.

At the kraal they had procured a large quantity of provisions for the journey—amobella meal for porridge, mealies, rice, beans, potatoes, and water-melons; and, while there, they had enjoyed the luxury of as much milk as they could drink; so that all the party were in pretty good condition and excellent spirits when they left. But this did not last very long, for the weather suddenly changed, and rain fell in immense quantities. The long rank grass of those regions became so saturated that it was impossible to keep one’s-self dry; and, to add to their discomforts, mosquitoes increased in numbers to such an extent that some of the European travellers could scarcely obtain a wink of sleep.

“Oh dear!” groaned poor Wilkins, one night as he lay between the major and Tom Brown on the wet grass under the shelter of a bullock-wagon covered with a wet blanket; “how I wish that the first mosquito had never been born!”

“If the world could get on without rain,” growled the major, “my felicity would be complete. There is a particular stream which courses down the underside of the right shaft of the wagon, and meets with some obstruction just at the point which causes it to pour continuously down my neck. I’ve shifted my position twice, but it appears to follow me, and I have had sensations for the last quarter of an hour which induce me to believe that a rivulet is bridged by the small of my back. Ha! have you killed him this time?”

The latter remark was addressed to Tom Brown, who had for some time past been vigorously engaged slapping his own face in the vain hope of slaying his tormentors—vain, not only because they were too quick to be caught in that way, but also, because, if slain by hundreds at every blow, there would still have remained thousands more to come on!

“No,” replied Tom, with a touch of bitterness in his tone; “he’s not dead yet.”

“He?” exclaimed Wilkins; “do you mean to say that you are troubled by only one of the vile creatures?”

“Oh no!” said Tom; “there are millions of ’em humming viciously round my head at this moment, but one of them is so big and assiduous that I have come to recognise his voice—there! d’you hear it?”

“Hear it!” cried Wilkins; “how can you expect me to hear one of yours when I am engaged with a host of my own? Ah! but I hear that,” he added, laughing, as another tremendous crack resounded from Tom Brown’s cheek; “what a tough skin you must have, to be sure, to stand such treatment?”

“I am lost in admiration of the amiableness of your temper, Tom,” remarked the major. “If I were to get such a slap in the face as that, even from myself, I could not help flying in a passion. Hope the enemy is defeated at last?”

“I—I—think so,” said Tom, in that meditative tone which assures the listener that the speaker is intensely on the qui vive; “yes, I believe I have—eh—no—there he—oh!”

Another pistol-shot slap concluded the sentence, and poor Tom’s companions in sorrow burst into a fit of laughter.

“Let ’im bite, sir,” growled the deep bass voice of Hardy, who lay under a neighbouring wagon; “when he’s got his beak well shoved into you, and begins to suck, he can’t get away so quick, ’cause of havin’ to pull it out again! hit out hard and quick then, an’ you’re sure of him. But the best way’s to let ’em bite, an’ go to sleep.”

“Good advice; I’ll try to take it,” said Tom, turning round with a sigh, and burying his face in the blanket. His companions followed his example, and in spite of rain and mosquitoes were soon fast asleep.

This wet weather had a very depressing effect on their spirits, and made the region so unhealthy that it began ere long to tell on the weaker members of the sporting party; as for the natives, they, being inured to it, were proof against everything. Being all but naked, they did not suffer from wet garments; and as they smeared their bodies over with grease, the rain ran off them as it does off the ducks. However, it did not last long at that time. In a few days the sky cleared, and the spirits of the party revived with their health.

The amount of animal life seen on the journey was amazing. All travellers in Africa have borne testimony to the fact that it teems with animals. The descriptions which, not many years ago, were deemed fabulous, have been repeated to us as sober truth by men of unquestionable veracity. Indeed, no description, however vivid, can convey to those whose personal experience has been limited to the fields of Britain an adequate conception of the teeming millions of living creatures, great and small, four-footed and winged, which swarm in the dense forests and mighty plains of the African wilderness.

Of course the hunters of the party were constantly on the alert, and great was the slaughter done; but great also was the capacity of the natives for devouring animal food, so that very little of the sport could be looked upon in the light of life taken in vain.

Huge and curious, as well as beautiful, were the creatures “bagged.”

On one occasion Tom Brown went out with the rest of the party on horseback after some elephants, the tracks of which had been seen the day before. In the course of the day Tom was separated from his companions, but being of an easy-going disposition, and having been born with a thorough belief in the impossibility of anything very serious happening to him, he was not much alarmed, and continued to follow what he thought were the tracks of elephants, expecting every moment to fall in with, or hear shots from his friends.

During the journey Tom had seen the major, who was an old sportsman, kill several elephants, so that he conceived himself to be quite able for that duty if it should devolve upon him. He was walking his horse quietly along a sort of path that skirted a piece of thicket when he heard a tremendous crashing of trees, and looking up saw a troop of fifty or sixty elephants dashing away through a grove of mapani-trees. Tom at once put spurs to his horse, unslung his large-bore double-barrelled gun, and coming close up to a cow-elephant, sent a ball into her behind the shoulder. She did not drop, so he gave her another shot, when she fell heavily to the ground.

At that moment he heard a shot not far off. Immediately afterwards there was a sound of trampling feet which rapidly increased, and in a few moments the whole band of elephants came rushing back towards him, having been turned by the major with a party of natives. Not having completed the loading of his gun, Tom hastily rode behind a dense bush, and concealed himself as well as he could. The herd turned aside just before reaching the bush, and passed him about a hundred yards off with a tremendous rush, their trunks and tails in the air, and the major and Wilkins, with a lot of natives and dogs, in full pursuit. Tom was beginning to regret that he had not fired a long shot at them, when he heard a crash behind him, and looking back saw a monstrous bull-elephant making a terrific charge at him. It was a wounded animal, mad with rage and pain, which had caught sight of him in passing. Almost before he was aware of its approach it went crashing through the thicket trumpeting furiously, and tearing down trees, bushes, and everything before it.

Tom lay forward on the neck of his steed and drove the spurs into him. Away they went like the wind with the elephant close behind. In his anxiety Tom cast his eyes too often behind him. Before he could avoid it he was close on the top of a very steep slope, or stony hill, which went down about fifty yards to the plain below. To rein up was impossible, to go down would have been almost certain death to horse and man. With death before and behind, our hero had no alternative but to swerve, for the trunk of the huge creature was already almost over the haunch of his terrified horse. He did swerve. Pulling the horse on his haunches, and swinging him round at the same moment as if on a pivot, he made a bound to the left. The elephant passed him with a shriek like that of a railway engine, stuck out its feet before it, and went sliding wildly down the slope—as little boys are sometimes wont to do—sending dust, atones, and rubbish in a stupendous cloud before him. At the foot he lost his balance, and the last that Tom saw of him was a flourish of his stumpy tail as he went heels over head to the bottom of the hill. But he could not stop to see more; his horse was away with him, and fled over the plain on the wings of terror for a mile in the opposite direction before he consented to be pulled up.

Tom’s companions, meanwhile, had shot two elephants—one a cow, the other a pretty old calf, and on their way back to camp they killed a buffalo. The other hunters had been also successful, so that the camp resounded with noisy demonstrations of joy, and the atmosphere ere long became redolent of the fumes of roasting meat, while the black bodies of the natives absolutely glittered with grease.

On summing up the result of the day’s work, it was found that they had bagged six elephants, three elands, two buffaloes, and a variety of smaller game.

“A good bag,” observed the major as he sipped his tea; “but I have seen better. However, we must rest content. By the way, Pearson, they tell me you had a narrow escape from a buffalo-bull.”

“So I had,” replied Pearson, pausing in the midst of a hearty meal that he was making off a baked elephant’s foot; “but for Anson there I believe it would have been my last hunt.”

“How did he help you?” asked Tom Brown.

“Come, tell them, Anson, you know best,” said Pearson; “I am too busy yet to talk.”

“Oh, it was simple enough,” said Anson with a laugh. “He and I had gone off together after a small herd of buffaloes; Ogilvie and Brand were away following up the spoor of an elephant. We came upon the buffaloes unexpectedly, and at the first shot Pearson dropped one dead—shot through the heart. We were both on foot, having left our horses behind, because the ground was too stony for them. After a hard chase of two hours we came up with the herd. Pearson fired at a young bull and broke its leg, nevertheless it went off briskly on the remaining three, so I fired and shot off its tail. This appeared to tickle his fancy, for he turned at once and charged Pearson, who dropped his gun, sprang into a thorn-tree and clambered out of reach only just in time to escape the brute, which grazed his heel in passing. Poor fellow, he got such a fright—”

“False!” cried Pearson, with his mouth full of meat.