104 



LION HUNTING IN AFRICA. 



where English settlers or office-holders are endeavoring to establish themselves 

 as comfortably as the conditions of a new tropical country will permit. 



One day three lions had been discovered attacking a buffalo who had been 

 grazing on the prairie near the edge of a dense jungle. As the hunting party 

 approached they saw traces of the lion's cruel rule all over the "velt," where 

 bones of zebras and antelopes were the only remnants of its ghastly repast. 

 The hunters stopped at some distance from the jungle, while the native beaters 

 drove the beasts toward them. Two of the lions, scenting the danger, bounded 

 ofif and hid in the jungle. But the third, blinded by fury and fear, and with a 





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From photograph. ^^^^j. ^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^ 



roar that reminded of a distant thunder, came leaping through the air swift 

 as lightning, and would in a second have buried its sharp claws in the quivering 

 limbs of its awe-stricken victims — when just in the right moment a rifle shot 

 resounded through the breathless silence of the plains, and the ex-President's 

 first big African game tumbled to the ground, hit in the brain by a soft- 

 headed bead from his never-failing Winchester barrel. The two beaters, one 

 an ebony-colored native, the other a white man from Sir Alfred's ranch, 

 were saved, and "Bvvana Tumbo" had established his reputation on African 

 soil as an unrivaled crack shot. 



