Lion-Hunting De Luxe.

Hawera Star, Volume L, 14 February 1931, Page 9

Lion-Hunting De Luxe.

CAN you find room for a couple of: lions? , asked a rather apologetic visitor who arrived at our little hotel one evening,” writes Lady Bettie Sherbrooke Walker, daughter of the Earl of Denbigh, who is now helping her husband to run a hotel in Kenya. “Oh, certainly,” we replied. “You can have room No. 4 and slip the lions into No. 22 and shut the door.” (No. 22 contained a visitor who was slow about paying his bill.) But the young soldier man said the lions and he could not part, and that they must share

a room. He went to his car and hauled out two cubs a few weeks old who spat and growled ferociously. They were about as big as half-grown St. Bernard's. He kept them in his private bathroom and gave them four-hourly feeds day and night of milk from a baby’s bottle. He had been shooting and had caught, them when their parents had been killed. Next morning he popped his luggage, his lions, and his native servant in the back of his car, and went on his way to Nairobi. Our place is on the edge of the big game district, and shooting expeditions outfit with us or stop a night on their way up from Nairobi to the wilds of the North-West Frontier. They start with new cars and lorries piled with camp equipment, camping gear, and servants and everything smart and clean. A month or two later they return, dusty, dirty and travel-worn, but usually mightily pleased with themselves. Their faces are tanned to the colour of a brick wall, the cars look much jhe worse for wear, and in place of the lorrvload of provisions and petrol there is a load of skins and heads, with probably some evil-look-ing rhino and buffalo horns sticking out among them.

They call for the steward—half of them ordering “Long shandy and a hot hath,” and the other half “Hot bath and long shandy.” Outfitting big-game expeditions is quite an amusing business. There are the iron men who are content to travel rough—sleep hard and cat simply; they are supplied with one tent, a few natives and the bare necessities of life, all of which are fitted into one motor lorry in which they go off into the blue to shoot lion, rhino and

“Hot Bath” on Edge of Jungle.

Outfitting Big Game Expedition.

buffalo, and many other kinds of game. Then there are the people who want to remain out for some time and be fairly comfortable ; they taken a dozen retainers, several tents and plenty of equipment, all of which is piled on two or three motor lorries and a couple of cats. Besides these there are the expeditions who wish to be surrounded by luxury as well as by big game; they take a refrigerator and eat ices at”dinner to the not-too-distant roar of a lion instead of the accustomed orchestra. The camp is lighted with electricity, and a radio operator keeps them in touch with the big world outside. A kincma man records all the excitements of the trip, and if it is too hot they have electric fans, and if too cold electric stoves.

We are taking back ifith us some homing pigeons, and mean to lend some 1o the people who are going right out into the desert so that if they want anything they can send a message back by pigeon-post. With one safari we outfitted there was a woman who was a very good target shot, hut iiad never shot anything alive, not even a rabbit.

On the first afternoon in camp the white hunter who was in charge of the expedition took her out to look for some little buck for the pot to find out how well she could shoot. She had a small-bore Springfield rifle, and as they were stalking a buck and she was about to fire an old rhino lumbered along.

She swung her rifle round and got the rhino right through the heart, dropping him dead on the spot, ft is not many people whose first shot in the field brings down such big game. Another safari we sent out came from a far country to take kinema pictures of every animal in Africa, and were determined to miss nothing. They were going to exhibit the pictures to their admiring friends at home, to show the big risks they had taken and how skilfully they had stalked their quarry.

Their plans were far-seeing and cautious, but their voices a trifle loud. They were heard discussing how on their way to Nycri they had visited the world’s most famous zoo, and, to guard against possible failure in Africa, had taken a film of every African animal; ‘'and we took .jolly good care not to get any keepers or railings in the picture,” one of them remarked.