LION HUNTING.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 11 September 1926, Page 11

LION HUNTING.

“The Adventurous Bowmen” by Saxton Pope, is the account of a recent hunting expedition in Tanganyika by some young Americans who used bows and arrows as 'their principal weapons, only relying upon rides as a last resort, -The book says: The hows are made of yew wood or osage .orange. Their length is five feet, six or eight inches, and each one pulls from sixty to ninety pounds when the arrow is full drawn. The. strings are made of Irish linen, well waxed. The arrow shafts are of birch. We feather thorn with pinions from the turkey, glued, and bound on with silk.

The points of the arrows are made of steel blades three inches long by one and a quarter inches wide, riveted in a, tubular steel haft or socket, m which the arrow shaft is set with cement.

It is scarcely surprising to hear that such a missile can be shot, about two hundred' yards', and will penetrate an animal tlie size of a deer as far off as it can hit. him, but it is surprising to read that even lions succumbed to arrows, not to - mention other big game, such as eland, which are the largest of the antelopes.

.The story of. their last lion shows what a remarkably exciting sport lion shooting of this- kind is. The hunters put down the usual bait of a dead buck and. waited. Then, in ythe darkness, they heard a lion approaching: 1 “I peered out and saw what I thought to be liis dark mane and outstretched body lying broadside to us. We braced our bows, notched our arrows, and settled ourselves to shoot. At a whispered count wo let fly. There, was a grunting roar, and in one bound the lion stood before the aperture- in our blind.liis mane standing erect, glaring at us with ’green eyes like two X•ray tubes. He was so near 1 could have touched him with my bow. T saw the shadowed outline of a feathered shaft deep in his side. Fortunately he turned and galloped off. We heard him fall and crush the arrow shaft in his teeth; we heard him give a. iong low moan, and all was quiet. Next morning they found him stone dead sonic fill yards away. Young’s arrow, buried to the feather, transfixed him through the chest, above the heart.