CHAPTER VI 



A LION DRIVE. WITH A RHINO IN RANGE SOME ONE 



SHOUTS "SIMBA" AND i GET MY FIRST GLIMPSE 



OF A WILD LION. THREE SHOTS AND OUT 



LIKE every one who goes to Africa with a gun 

 and a return ticket, I had two absorbing ambitions. 

 One was to kill a lion and the other to live to tell 

 about it. In my estimation all the other animals 

 compared to a lion as latitude eighty-seven and a 

 half compares to the north pole. I wanted to climb 

 out of the Tartarin of Tarascon class of near lion 

 hunters into the ranks of those who are entitled to 

 remark, "Once, when I was in Africa shooting 

 lions," etc. A dead lion is bogey in the big game 

 sport the score that every hunter dreams of achiev- 

 ing and I was extremely eager to make the dream 

 a reality. 



When speaking with English sportsmen in Lon- 

 don my first question was, "Did you get any lions?" 

 If they had, they at once rose in my estimation; if 

 not, no matter how many elephants or rhinos or buf- 

 faloes they may have shot, they still remained in the 

 amateur class. 



On the steamer going down to Mombasa the 

 hunting talk was four-fifths lion and one-fifth 

 about other game. The cripple who had been badly 



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