HEROIC STRUGGLE WITH A LION.

Evening Post, Issue 128, 1 June 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

HEROIC STRUGGLE WITH A LION.

Mr. J. Friend, a well-known resident of Vryburg, and carrier, travelling to Salisbury with waggons, reached the Umfulie reoently, and there learnt of the mischief being worked by a lion among the cattle of that station. The night before he arrived there Mr James McGeer had watched for the depredator, but only succeeded in slightly wounding the beast. At four o'clock the next afternoon Mr. Friend, who had arrived on the scene, heard that the lion was again amongst the cattle, and, like most fresh visitor shere, ardent upon including the king of animals among his shooting trophies, seized his gun and hastened to the spot. Be saw the lion in the act of bringing down an ox and fired, breaking the lion's leg below the shoulder. Before he could fall back the wounded creature sprang upon him, frightfully lacerating his shoulder with one of its paws, and at the same time literally closing its jaws on the flower portion of -the unfortunate hunter'shead. Strangely enough the lion then retreated for some twenty yards, but more marvelous still is what follows. In spite of the awful injuries and physical shock Mr. Friend had received, he immeiately rose to his feet, re-loaded, took deliberate aim, and shot the lion through the heart. It is needless for us to expatiate on the boundless oourage and nerve of a man who,with the flesh torn from his side and his jaws fractured, could yet stand 'erect and take unerring aim at his brute foe. No writer of travel or novel could have dared depict such an event without laying himself open to general incredulity, yet such are the undoubted facts. Mr. Friend was taken with all possible despatch to Salisbury, and at the time this account waa written lies at the hospital in a condition which, of ooune,

cannot fail to be precarious. Mi Ernes*; Homan was in tbe uoigh bouihood at the time, and vouche for the account that we have given