The Capturing of a Lion 



a bad sore gradually festered. It wounded one of my 

 people very badly by ripping open a vein in his arm when 

 he went to feed it. 



Thus terminated my efforts to bring an old lion to 

 Europe. 



Much that is easy in appearance is troublesome in reality. 

 Even when the animal is overcome, the transportation 

 of it to the coast is accompanied by almost insuperable 

 difficulties. It means something to carry beast and cage, a 

 burden amounting to something like eight hundred pounds, 

 right through the wilderness by means of bearers. Even 

 with the help of the Uganda Railway it has not been 

 possible to bring home a full-grown lion. I have repeatedly 

 caught lions for this purpose, but have always experienced 

 ultimate failure. 



Sometimes the animals would not return to the place 

 where I had tracked or sighted them, or would steer clear 

 of the decoy. One often meets with this experience in 

 India with tigers, which are decoyed in much the same 

 way, and then shot from a raised stand. Interesting 

 information about the behaviour of tigers in such cases 

 may be found in the publications of English hunters, as 

 well as in the very interesting book on tropical sport by 

 P. Niedieck, a German hunter of vast experience. I 

 might perhaps have succeeded on subsequent occasions 

 in transporting old lions, but I never had the strong cages 

 at hand. Now perhaps they are rusted and rotted, as well 

 as the other implements which I hid or buried on the velt, 

 not having bearers enough to carry them, and hoping to find 

 them again later. 



497 



