194 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



Pease, who was out with him, is an exceptionally good 

 hunter, a fine rider and shot, very hardy and cool. He has 

 killed very many lions, a number of them under circum- 

 stances of much hazard; and, being a close observer, he has 

 been struck by the wide variety of conduct among them, 

 and the occasional great danger from them; and he com- 

 bines to an unusual degree extreme boldness with very 

 good judgment. After we left him in East Africa, he wrote 

 describing two lion hunts in which he had taken part, Harold 

 Hill and his brother Clifford being along. In one a lioness 

 literally behaved like a cur; she got into a thicket and would 

 not go out until he fired buckshot into it, and even then, 

 although slightly wounded, she ran like a rabbit and was 

 killed like one. In the other hunt, a big-maned lion fought 

 with savage ferocity, charging the mounted men again and 

 again, almost escaping, and finally being killed in full charge 

 at the distance of a few feet by the rifles of his three pur- 

 suers. Pease then went back to England, but returned to 

 Mombasa early in 191 1 in company with George Grey, who 

 went with him expressly to try riding lions on the Kapiti 

 Plains. The fatal hunt occurred on the 29th of January. 

 In a letter Pease writes of it as follows: 



During the voyage Grey often talked of lion hunting and 

 told me he had never seen lions "ridden" and bailed up, the 

 method I had found so successful for many years. I explained to 

 him on several occasions what was required and how it was done 

 and over and over again impressed on him certain rules, which if 

 observed reduced danger to a minimum. The rule I pressed 

 most was when galloping a lion never to get within 200 yards of 

 one and that it must never be forgotten that no horse can get 

 away from a lion with only 100 yards start: but that with a fast 

 handy sure footed pony on sound ground a lion could not catch 



