122 THE LAND OF THE LION 



I will add one short story, as a further illustration of 

 my contention. A friend of mine, now dead, told me he 

 wanted above all things to kill a grizzly. So I wrote to 

 Frank C - and my friend went out to the Shoshone 

 Mountains. In a couple of months he came to see me in 

 New York, and told a blood-curdling tale, of how he and 

 Frank had been charged by three bears, and how, at a 

 few feet distance, they had killed them. I was surprised, 

 but, of course, said nothing. Next year I said to my 

 man, "What about those three grizzlies that charged 



you and ?" He laughed. "We were hidden,'* said he, 



"in the scrub, at the foot of a nut pine. The bait we had 

 for them was fifty yards away. An old sow and two 



yearling cubs came all right in the evening. wounded 



the sow he first shot, and she and her cubs came rushing 

 by our tree, they never saw us, they had no idea where the 

 shot came from. We killed them as they ran by and 

 passed us." 



I hope these dissertations on our only dangerous game 

 animals may not seem without interest or out of place 

 here. I dwell on them, for I am convinced, that the dan- 

 ger of charging beasts, which is I admit, considerable in 

 Africa, has been very needlessly and grossly exaggerated. 



It is serious, and must be prepared for, but there is; 

 no need to make it out worse than it is. Many men have 

 killed all sorts of animals here, and will tell you honestly 

 they have never seen the determined charge of lion, rhino, 

 elephant, buffalo, or leopard. Yet, of course, the fact 

 remains that many are killed or mauled by these animals. 

 And though you may shoot several of them, and never 

 stand on the stern defensive, when it is your life or theirs, 

 the very first lion or rhino you wound, may come straight 

 at you, and may not swerve or pass to either side. 



The little burial ground at Nairobi has several head- 

 stones marked "killed by lions." All elephant hunters tell 



