With Flashlight and Rifle -* 



remained in the same position. The dogs ran towards 

 her, making a great noise, but ventured no nearer than 

 five or six yards. On the second fire she was shot dead. 

 A bullet was found under the skin, which she must have 

 received long before, as the wound was completely healed. 

 She had received many wounds from our people, especially 

 a severe one in the mouth." 



Thus was carried out a lion-hunt in South Africa a 

 hundred years ago. Elsewhere the missionary enlarged 

 frequently on the habits and customs of lions from 

 hearsay, naturally and states, amongst other things, that 

 a lion will carry away an ox upon his back and a sheep 

 in his mouth. He bases this statement upon the difference 

 in the weights of the two animals. 



If it must be admitted that the killing of lions in 

 those days, with the primitive guns then in use, was a 

 much more dangerous undertaking than it is in these clays 

 of perfected rifles, there is yet no reason to be surprised 

 that these animals were so quickly exterminated wherever 

 the colonists settled down. We have a picture presented 

 to us here of a body of Europeans with about thirteen 

 muskets setting out cautiously upon their warlike enter- 

 prise. How far less courage is involved in this kind of 

 thing than in the hunting of lions with sword and spear, 

 as was the custom of the natives in those clays. 



The lion's knell had sounded already then. Now he 

 is disappearing quickly. Pere Guilleme, a missionary, who 

 was stationed for many years at Tanganyika, tells me that 

 the "white fathers" there have killed thirty-seven lions 

 in the course of only four years for the most part by the 



388 



