83 THE GAME OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA, 



find that they can account for big game easier than they had expected. Beginner's 

 luck is proverbial in most sports, and big-game shooting is no exception. Many are the 

 stories one hears of tyros who cannot shoot and who do not know where to aim or 

 how to approach an animal, yet successfully drawing a bolt at a venture or meeting 

 with an animal under almost unheard of favourable circumstances and securing a 

 magnificent trophy. 



The first sable bull I ever shot might have been deaf and blind, from 

 his behaviour. I walked suddenly on to him at close quarters, quite accidentally, 

 in the bush. Several men were talking at the time and did not stop immediately. 

 Yet the sable strolled towards us quite unconcernedly and gave me a shot at 

 thirty yards. 



I have spent many long days following up sable since, but have never obtained 

 a better head. If I had been a short-trip sportsman and returned to England after 

 this performance, what a very wrong impression I might have carried home of the 

 art, patience, and work required in bagging this particular animal. 



A man who has bowled over a few lions as easily as if they had been so many 

 rabbits goes back to England and dilates upon the cowardly nature of the king 

 of beasts. If he had stopped to shoot a few more he might have changed his 

 opinion. A sportsman has always an exaggerated respect for a dangerous animal 

 before he has shot one, but if he manages to shoot one or two without mishap 

 he experiences a revulsion of feeling, and the respect felt before gives place to 

 a feeling something like contempt. The dangerous animal is never, perhaps, after 

 that quite replaced on its old pedestal, but every one of its kind shot after the first 

 two or three gives the hunter a slightly added respect for it. 



A dangerous animal does not always rush for one on sight, as many people seem 

 to think. If it did, there would now be either no dangerous animals surviving or else 

 no hunters. It has, in fact, a natural tendency to try to avoid danger, though 

 it can be formidable enough on occasions. A lion, for instance, however 

 fierce he may be, cannot always be feeling ready to rush at a stranger with no 

 provocation whatever ; moreover, he may be feeling comfortable and replete after a 

 heavy meal. 



A famous duellist, comfortably asleep in a house and suddenly hearing a number 

 of people, armed with rifles, and with whom he had no quarrel, clamouring for his life, 

 would, if only armed with a sword, make a bolt for the back door. If he found on 

 arrival there that his retreat was cut off he would probably then try to fight his way 

 through. Similarly with the lion, found lying comfortably asleep in a reed-bed and 

 suddenly hearing the clamour of armed people looking for him, he naturally slinks 



