SURROUNDED BY LIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9157, 25 March 1893, Page 10 (Supplement)

SURROUNDED BY LIONS.

Mb. J. Garden, a member of the South African Company's police, sends to the Sporting and Dramatic News an interesting account of an encounter with lions while on ah' expedition to a native chief. The writer says:—"l told you' that X had been to a place called ' Maranja's Kraal,'and was just off there again with a party of fourbeou. We gob there on the second night out from here, and as I had slept within a mile of the place the week before, and the Kaffir.?, had told us there were no lions, vie thought, naturally, it was quite safe. We had ail turned in. I had Noticed Graham (sSbh Regiment)" go round the horses at about one o'clock and make up the fires pretty large, when suddenly at 1.30 one of the men saw a lion jump from the grass on to a nigger just live yards from my head. Of course we were all up like shot, bub tha poor old Kaffir was gone. I fortunately had a bull'seye lantern, and we went through the long grass and heard one lion moving off then suddenly came on the other. Firebrands were thrown, and quite ton or more shots fired over the brute's head, but it was no good ; it »vould nob leave the Kaffir, and was chewing up his shoulder bone. We were then

WITHIN FOUR YARDS OF THE LION. I held the lantern while three others were shooting. At last he was hit hard, though too high up to kill him, and he went off growling, Wo then managed to get the ♦boy' kick to tho fire, and a more awful sight I have never seen. He was completely scalped from an inch above his eyebrows to the back of his head and to the ears on each side, his right shoulder and arm chewed up to pulp, large bites on his back, and very big scratches all over his body. I suppose the Hon had him for aboub, a minute, but ib seemed to me half an hour before we got him back to .the fire. The cries he made were awful; we distinctly saw with the aid of the lantern the lion chewing him. We had at the time this occurred six large fires foing; the Kaffir was sleeping by one when e was taken. We had a lot of boys with us as carriers; they all made a rush for a' tree, so they were out o£>the way. " Two minutes after we gob the Kaffir to the fire, another lion or >Swo made a rush at the horses, which were on a piquet rope they all broke loose; we managed to get hold of seven oub of fourteen, and quite thought some of the others were caught from the row that was going on a hundred yards away. We had , '■; ' LIONS ROUND U3 ' ' for the next four hours; it was the most beastly nighb I ever spent. There being no moon whatever, ib was quite pitch dark, and every now and then one would hoar a grunt something likfs a pig, the noise lions always make when hungry, no roaring whatever. About an hour before dawn wo heard something being dragged, and quite thought ib was the remains of a horse, bub found in the morning the remains of a saddle which had been lying ten yards from us, simply torn to pieces. The sun was nob up in the morning before the lioness that killed the Kaffir had seven bullets in her ; there was quite a little hunt after her, she went five hundred yards and then dropped ; when she was opened and skinned she was quite empty, and evidently had had no food for a long time. The poor old Kaffir died at 8.30; it was a piby he was not shot by mistake, he could nob possibly have lived. ; It was rathe • amusing ab nighb when we wenb onb to make up the fires. A man would say, 'I will make up tho fire if you will cover me, so we would start with a torch and

. THREE MEN WITH EIFLES LOADED , behind one- Next morning we wenb out bo look for the horses ; i first one appeared, nose and head frightfully scarred, also hindquarters ;, an hour after three more were brought in, nine among them, and with two bad bites above the hock,, one place I could put my finger in—ono consolation, I know he must have kicked pretty hard, he had just been shod. The others turned up, some scratched and knocked about, but most wonderfully none were killed. Oar camp was only 200 yards from the foot of Maranga's mountain. " Of course we had to stop another day, so we made an enormous ' scarura' of thorn, trees, and bushes ; the horses, a cart and oxen {that had arrived later), tho carriers, and ourselves were all inside; the bush wails were quite twelve feet high and very ttrong, six large fires inside, and two men on sentry the whole night. At eight o'clock the lions were round again, we ' could hear them scratching outside, but fire-brands and the bulk's-eyo kept them off. They did not trouble much again till my turn came with another man from two o'clock till four. I saw one of the bearers, a six-foot ' boy,' making up a fire, when suddenly he stood up straight with his assegai ready (he was a fine sight); we went down, but could see nothing, so- threw over a fire-stick, and heard a guttural grunting growl, and then the brute made off. '(' You may imagine no one slept much even in tho scaruni. What a helpless individual a man is on a dark night, even "if he has a rifle! One always ou#hb to burn the grass round one at night, besides making a 'searurn,' as you can see a lion against a black background even on a darkish night. Strange to say, the lions had nob touched the carcase of the lioness on the second night."