WHEN THE LION PURRED

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 December 1933, Page 12

WHEN THE LION PURRED

HAIRBREADTH ESCAPES. Safari Sam, an old-time African trader and hunter, in his reminis censes, told to Mi* Gordon Makepeace in ‘Safari Sam.” tells how a prospector rid himself of a lion in a novel manner. A prospector in Northern Rhodesia woke just before dawn one morning to find a lion sniffing at the door of In’s tent, lie dare not shoot, through the wall of the tent, because a miss would bring an enraged lion on top of. him. The libn moved slowly round the tent, and the prospector, “fearing it would tear the canvas, prodded the lion gently with tliq butte of his rifle as it sniffed round the flaps. To his astonishment the lion growled softly, and then started to make strange purring noises. . . . The creature liked it. For fully five minutes it gurgled and growled its way round the .tent, with the prospector prodding aw'in sheer desperation. Finally it away, grunting unhappily!” Safari Sam has had a numb- 'qof exciting encounters with lions. : -’e he met in a dry riverbed when hc_ was armed with nothing but a penkhT] • The lion, he says, was about 15 yards away—and there was not even a t handy:—“The lion growled and grbwled. I could see that it was working, itself up to attack me, but the fact that I stood still puzzled it. I didn’t move an inch.' As a matter of fact, I couldn’t. Presently the lion moved off a few yards . . . Luckily I didn’t move, because it turned round quickly after' a few yards and looked at me, no doubt expecting that I should run and give it a good moral excuse for a few quick bounds before dinner. Seeing me still there, motionless, it just turned and growled itself off . . I lost no time in clearing off as soon as it was out of sight.” A hunter once told Safari Sam that he had a little Scotch terrier which “could never quite rid itself of the idea that his master was playing a game, and that it was his duty to dash up and seize a lion playfully by the leg. Most dogs are terrified at the sight of a lion, but this little terrier used to bark at them fierccely as if they were cows in the road. On several occasion lions took to an undignified flight at the sight of the little bundle of white hair ‘baiting’ them.”

Safari Sam and his friend and employer, “The Count.” owed their lives to a small terrier that attached itself to their party. In a narrow valley they came suddenly upon an elephant, herd —a false move would bring the herd thundering down upon them: —“I felt that my last hour was imminent when the little dog dashed away, delightedly to bark at all the wonderful elephants—more elephants than it thought were in the whole world. It barked and harked . . . The herd was taken aback at the strange demonstration. The elephants flapped their ears, waved their trunks, and stamped about nervously. Finally they turned slowly and crashed off down the valley in the opposite direction to our wagons.” This terrier nosed up a cobra in the grass one day—and Safari Sam’s party was dogless. ELEPHANT’S PERCEPTION.

Generally elephants are dangerously clever and cunning. A hunter, so Safari Sam was once told, fired at a large rogue elephant and missed a fatal spot. He ran, “but he didn’t realise that w an ejephant can tax. the speed of a man on horseback in bush country, and he was soon in difficulties. He saw a big ant-bear hole, and in panic he threw away his rifle and crept into it. The rogue walked round the place for a few minutes, according to the natives, as if he were sizing up the position. Then he proceeded to tramp down the hole with earth ... It did its work quietly

and with deadly precision. Then with a shrill trumpeting it crashed away through the hush . . . The unfortunate man was dug up, but as he was dead he was put back again.” The buffalo, says Sam, “is quite the fiercest creature that continent can produce.” They are best left alone if one is alone. One man tried a shot, missed, and shinned up a tree, leaving his rifle on the ground. The buffalo dashed up . . . and spent a

few minutes trying to push the tree over. ... It was a stout tree and the buffalo could not do much with it. The hunter started to breathe again when the infuriated creature moved off a short distance. Then to his horror he saw the buffalo charging the tree, head down, and coming with the force of a battering ram. The impact of the buffalo’s head with the trunk made the tree shake, but luckily it was too difficult a proposition. . . Time after time the buffalo returned to the charge.” Ultimately it went into the long grass. The hunter descended, got his rifle, found himself charged from a totally unexpected direction, and bagged the buffalo with a lucky shot. Leopards have a habit of sitting up a tree and pouncing on anything suitable that passes. A strange fact, according to Safari Sam, is that a leo-

pard will often allow a man to pass directly' underneath it “provided he does not look up and catch the leopard’s eye. Once the eyes meet war is declared immediately ... I tested my theory once unknowingly. I glanced' back after I had passed all unsuspectingly under a branch where a fullgrown leopard was crouching. It made for me at once, but as it had to get down from tho branch and cover a few yards I had a chance of getting in two shots. Still, it was a close call." Safari Sam has an amazing talc of a light between a man and a crocodile. A number of men were bathing in the river, and Ben Groenewalt, a hefty transport rider, found a crocodile between him and the bank. He swam quietly toward it, then dived

and came up next to the crocodile. He stood up, and. bracing himself firmly' on the shallow bed. he seized the astonished crocodile round the middle. With a Herculean effort he lifted the creature out of the water! . . After a few minutes’ desperate struggle Groenewalt walked to the bank with his captive crocodile, and put it down under a. tree about a dozen yards from the river, lie held it down while we procured ropes and wagon chains, and with these we trussed up the crocodile. Groenewalt suffered nothing except some scratches and bruises.

GASSING A PYTHON Safari Sam and “The Count” caught a python by gassing it. After a long chase the python had crawled into an ant-hole. “The Count” got his apparatus ready, “inserted the rubber tubing into the hole, and broke a couple of phials in the pumping bag. He pumped for about five minutes, and then we got the natives to work with spades. Wo made an enormous ;

excavation before we came to the py’thon’s tail. . . A rope was tied round this extremity, and we all pulled gently ... . ‘The Count’ took out his forceps and insisted on catching the creature’s head in them. It was lucky he did. because the gas. as it turned out, did not work too well on pythons, and the air seemed to revive it . . . But finally, after a struggle Mr. Python was bagged.”

Another time they' lassoed a giraffe. “The Count” tied the rope to the pommel of his saddle and off they went—all except the giraffe. Then "three horses were attached by rope to the giraffe. ‘Gentlemen,’ said ‘The Count.' ‘when I say ‘Ho!’ we shall all pull the giraffe together, and presently the foolish creature will walk home with us . . .’ ‘Ho!’ said ‘The Count,’ and we all pulled . . The giraffe bent his neck to accommodate the concerted effort, but his legs remained planted like those of an obstinate mule. In the end, however, the giraffe followed them like a dog on a lead.”

During the East African campaign in the Great War a sergeant was taking three German prisoners back to the base, when they’ came upon some

eland. The sergeant “halted his party and took several shots, but he missed badly. One of the prisoners, forgetting his position for a moment, asked if he could have a shot. The sergeant promptly gave him the riflle, and the prisoner succeeded in bringing down an eland on the run at a distance of .about 500yds—a feat which called forth much applause from the entire party’. He gave the sergeant his rifle back, and the party marched on!”