THE BIG GAME OF AFRICA 



and, seeing this, I fired with my excellent 11.2 millimeter 

 Mauser rifle, hitting the lion square in the chest. It took 

 three or four big leaps into the dense bush lining the 

 little stream, and from there we now heard his loud grunt- 

 ing for a few seconds. My men wanted me to shoot into 

 the bush at random, thinking I might hit the lion some- 

 where, but this seemed to me perfectly useless and cow- 

 ardly, so I advanced cautiously, with the gun ready. Part- 

 ing the bushes with my left arm, to be able to peer into the 

 dense thicket, I finally caught sight of the ' fallen mon- 

 arch,' breathing his last and stretched out on the ground. 

 Now it was my turn to shout, and in a few seconds the 

 rest of the men came around congratulating and saying 

 that they had never before seen a lion with such a big 

 mane. After having pulled it out from the bush, we found 

 that it measured nine feet eight inches from the tip of 

 the nose to the end of the tail, and so proved to be a 

 large specimen with an unusually long and thick black 

 mane. . . ." 



On the following Tuesday morning we left camp long 

 before daylight to see if we could find some more lions, 

 and this day proved to be one of the most successful hunt- 

 ing days that I have ever had. Having arrived just after 

 sunrise on a rather high elevation on the plains, from 

 where we had an excellent view in all directions, I sat 

 down on a big rock to examine the plains with the field 

 glasses. To the east I saw six giraffes — three large ones, 

 evidently a male and two females, and three young ones, 

 the smallest of which was not much larger than an ordi- 

 nary calf, except for the length of its neck. Between us 

 and the giraffes was a herd of about thirty eland ante- 



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