Captain Stigand' s Adventures. 87 



head. He found afterwards that his first bullet had broken 

 its lower jaw, and the pain made it shift its grip further up 

 his arm. Captain Stigand, being a powerful man, kept 

 striking the beast with his fist, and at last it left him and: 

 went off. He managed to get to the small railway station, 

 and, having some permanganate of potash handy, he put 

 some of the crystals into the bites. Next day a train came 

 along and took him to Nairobi, where he was ill for some 

 time. If he had not used the permanganate I believe he 

 would have lost his arm. I may mention that the lion was 

 finished off from the train the same day, as it was seen 

 lying quite close. Its skin, which I saw in London after- 

 wards, was riddled with bullet-holes, and the skull showed 

 the broken lower jaw, the result of the first shot. I cannot 

 say I admire the men who peppered this lion from the rail- 

 way carriage by daylight, considering that a single man 

 followed it at night. This, although a courageous pro- 

 ceeding, cannot be recommended, for the simple reason 

 that the odds are too much against the man, as it is quite 

 impossible to make good shooting with a rifle when the 

 sights are invisible. 



A year or two before these events took place Captain 

 Stigand was knocked down by a wounded elephant in 

 North-Eastern Rhodesia, and his clothes were covered 

 with blood from the animal's mouth and trunk. On this 

 occasion he managed to escape the notice of the animal 

 by lying quiet, almost right underneath it, and I believe he 

 eventually followed up and killed it. Again, he was upset 

 in the Nile by a hippo, which, I think he mentions in one 

 of his books, badly bit one of the boatmen. 



I read in the Field of January 25, 1913, that Captain 

 Stigand has been very badly injured by a bull elephant in 

 the Sudan. It seems he was not hunting it, but trying to 

 drive it from the natives' gardens, when it attacked him 

 and put one of its tusks through his thigh, and then threw 

 him some distance. All who know him, or of him, w r ill be 

 glad to hear he has recovered from the serious injuries he 

 received. 



