“THE LION ROAEED”

Evening Star, Issue 18254, 19 April 1923, Page 5

“THE LION ROAEED”

A NERVE-SHAKING ADVENTURE. 1 On the Gorilla Trail,’ which describes the experiences in the Belgian Congo of Mary Hastings Bradley, tho American novelist, her husband, their little daughter Alice, and Mr Carl E. Akeloy, of tho American Museum of Natural History, gives an exciting description of a lion hunt. Mra Bradley shot a lion on tho Ruindi Plains. As ho entered a thicket she shot him again., and then the party cut away the overhanging branches. Tho lion’s head was propped up on Mrs Bradley’s lap for a photograph. “If I had known as much about dead lions as 1 did a .little later,” she says, “ I should have known that when they die the eyes are open—not with the lids drawn in a paralysed sort of wink,” She was trying to keep the head up for a second picture when the lion growled. “ ‘ Is it the death rattle?’ I asked. Monsieur Flamand (the Belgan Administrator) assured mo the lion was certainly finished. Ho wasn’t moving, so wo went on to get the picture, tho lion growling a little more and more. And then—just as the picture was taken—tho lion roared. It was the most astonished moment of my life. I left the lion, left him abruptly, I joined th© men, and we stared at him. Wo saw that his eyes were open and ho was breathing with a regularity and vigor that would have been reassuring to an anxious nurse. Just then Mr Akeley, who had heard tho shots, came hurrying up with Miss Miller, and I shall never forget the astoimdcdness of his expression nor the vigorous disapproval of his remarks. Fortunately for the entente cordiale, he spoke no French. Ho was conveying that the lion was very much alive, and would recover from his temporary paralysis at any moment and kill us all.”