ENCOUNTER WITH LION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20929, 20 January 1930, Page 2

ENCOUNTER WITH LION.

„ BOER KILLED BY BUCK; Two tragic occurrences are reported from Nossob Valley, in the eastern part part of the Gibeon district in Southwest Africa, both being the results of encounters with wild animals (says the ' Cape Times). In the one case a young German named Marwitz, employed in boring for water in the same neighbourhood, went out with a bushman to look for lions, which had been preying on the donkeys attached to the coring machine durinw the preceding night. They came upon two lions at night and shot one and wounded the other.. Next morning Marwitz and the bushman followed the wounded lion’s spoor and, on finding him, were immediately charged at by the enraged beast. Marwitz fired two shots at the lion, ; but. was unable to stop the animal from ! leaping upon him and throwing him to \ the ground. To protect his body from the_ animal, he thrust his left hand, in which he held an automatic pistol, into the lion’s mouth.

The pistol fortunately fell on the ground where he could reach it with his right hand, and while his left hand was being gnawed to shreds, he fired two shots into the lion’s head, so that ’" the animal fell dead on top of him. ,| The bushman immediately ran to the ■ camp for assistance, and the wounded”' man was conveyed with all speed to Windhoek, a distance of almost 300 miles, where he now lies in hospital in a critical condition.

Ten days earlier a young Angola Boer was killed by a gemsbok. It would appear that on November 3, Koos Viijoen, aged 26, the son of an Angola Boer living in the Angola Boer settlement on the Nossob, was'out in the veld tending sheep when he came upon a wounded gemsbok lying under a tree. He apparently approached the buck too closely, and was tossed by the painmaddened animal into the air, with such force that one of the long horns pierced his right thigh while the other horn penetrated his chest, piercing the heart and emerging at the back of the left shoulder. Death must hare been instantaneous.

His body was discovered some hours later by his father, who was led to the scene of the tragedy by the dead mans dog. The wounds 6n the corpse, the footprints and the presence of the wounded gemsbok, which was still Ivin" under a camel-thorn tree a few yards from its victim, bore unmistakable evidence as to the manner of the youn" man’s death. * °