THE BIG GAME OF AFRICA 



Instantly three sportsmen made themselves ready to 

 go down by the next train to the station to kill the man- 

 eater. They arrived there in the evening, and the private 

 car in which they traveled was switched off at the station. 

 They all now agreed that during the night they should 

 take turns, so that one should always be watching, while 

 the other two slept until the morning broke, when they 

 expected to go out and look for the lion. That evening 

 they probably had taken a little too much whisky, for 

 they all w^nt to sleep, including the unfortunate hunter, 

 who with his loaded gun had sat down in the open door 

 of the carriage to keep watch. The one, however, who 

 did not sleep was the lion. For a little after sunset it 

 bounded right into the car, snatched the sleeping watch- 

 man, and jumped out with him through one of the windows 

 of the car, quickly disappearing with its unfortunate prey 

 into the jungle. 



It is a fact, although almost incredible, that the ill- 

 fated hunters' comrades were either too frightened or too 

 drunk, or both, to make any attempt at rescuing their 

 friend, for they both shut themselves up in the car, and 

 when they went out the next morning to look for the lion, 

 they found only the skull and a few bones of their un- 

 fortpnate comrade. This lion was subsequently killed, 

 a good many glass pieces in its mane and back proving 

 beyond a question that it had been the guilty one. 



I heard this story for the first time while I was trav- 

 eling on the Uganda Railroad between Mombasa and 

 Nairobi on my hunting trip in 1906. A German officer 

 who shared the same compartment had told me this story 

 most dramatically, and, full of excitement and anticipated 



48 



