If We Find Ten Bucks Who Will Go A Mile
Wounded To Two Who Succumb In Their Tracks From Similar Hurts, We
Are Justified In Saying Tentatively That The Species Is Tenacious
Of Life.
But as experience broadens we may modify that statement;
for strange indeed are runs of luck.
For this reason a good deal of the wise conclusion we read in
sportsmen's narratives is worth very little. Few men have
experience enough with lions to rise to averages through the
possibilities of luck. ESPECIALLY is this true of lions. No beast
that roams seems to go more by luck than felis leo. Good hunters
may search for years without seeing hide nor hair of one of the
beasts. Selous, one of the greatest, went to East Africa for the
express purpose of getting some of the fine beasts there, hunted
six weeks and saw none. Holmes of the Escarpment has lived in the
country six years, has hunted a great deal and has yet to kill
his first. One of the railroad officials has for years gone up
and down the Uganda Railway on his handcar, his rifle ready in
hopes of the lion that never appeared; though many are there seen
by those with better fortune. Bronson hunted desperately for this
great prize, but failed. Rainsford shot no lions his first trip,
and ran into them only three years later. Read Abel Chapman's
description of his continued bad luck at even seeing the beasts.
MacMillan, after five years' unbroken good fortune, has in the
last two years failed to kill a lion, although he has made many
trips for the purpose. F. told me he followed every rumour of a
lion for two years before he got one. Again, one may hear the
most marvellous of yarns the other way about-of the German who
shot one from the train on the way up from Mombasa; of the young
English tenderfoot who, the first day out, came on three asleep,
across a river, and potted the lot; and so on. The point is, that
in the case of lions the element of sheer chance seems to begin
earlier and last longer than is the case with any other beast.
And, you must remember, experience must thrust through the luck
element to the solid ground of averages before it can have much
value in the way of generalization. Before he has reached that
solid ground, a man's opinions depend entirely on what kind of
lions he chances to meet, in what circumstances, and on how
matters happen to shape in the crowded moments.
But though lack of sufficiently extended experience has much to
do with these decided differences of opinion, I believe that
misapprehension has also its part. The sportsman sees lions on
the plains. Likewise the lions see him, and promptly depart to
thick cover or rocky butte. He comes on them in the scrub; they
bound hastily out of sight. He may even meet them face to face,
but instead of attacking him, they turn to right and left and
make off in the long grass. When he follows them, they sneak
cunningly away. If, added to this, he has the good luck to kill
one or two stone dead at a single shot each, he begins to think
there is not much in lion shooting after all, and goes home
proclaiming the king of beasts a skulking coward.
After all, on what grounds does he base this conclusion? In what
way have circumstances been a test of courage at all? The lion
did not stand and fight, to be sure; but why should he? What was
there in it for lions? Behind any action must a motive exist.
Where is the possible motive for any lion to attack on sight? He
does not-except in unusual cases-eat men; nothing has occurred
to make him angry. The obvious thing is to avoid trouble, unless
there is a good reason to seek it. In that one evidences the
lion's good sense, but not his lack of courage. That quality has
not been called upon at all.
But if the sportsman had done one of two or three things, I am
quite sure he would have had a taste of our friend's mettle. If
he had shot at and even grazed the beast; if he had happened upon
him where an exit was not obvious; or IF HE HAD EVEN FOLLOWED THE
LION UNTIL THE LATTER HAD BECOME TIRED OF THE ANNOYANCE,
he would very soon have discovered that Leo is not all good nature,
and that once on his courage will take him in against any odds.
Furthermore, he may be astonished and dismayed to discover that
of a group of several lions, two or three besides the wounded
animal are quite likely to take up the quarrel and charge too. In
other words, in my opinion, the lion avoids trouble when he can,
not from cowardice but from essential indolence or good nature;
but does not need to be cornered* to fight to the death when in
his mind his dignity is sufficiently assailed.
*This is an important distinction in estimating the inherent
courage of man or beast. Even a mouse will fight when cornered.
For of all dangerous beasts the lion, when once aroused, will
alone face odds to the end. The rhinoceros, the elephant, and
even the buffalo can often be turned aside by a shot. A lion
almost always charges home.* Slower and slower he comes, as the
bullets strike; but he comes, until at last he may be just
hitching himself along, his face to the enemy, his fierce spirit
undaunted. When finally he rolls over, he bites the earth in
great mouthfuls; and so passes fighting to the last. The death of
a lion is a fine sight.
*I seem to be generalizing here, but all these conclusions must
be understood to take into consideration the liability of
individual variation.
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