72 PEACE: LION HUNTING 



throwing up and turning back at the last moment. 

 Besides, the lion must have been very hard hit to 

 have stayed behind when his lionesses fled, and 

 for all I knew he might be so far gone and so 

 weak as to be almost helpless. It was only the 

 previous evening in camp that I had been re- 

 reading some of my favourite poems of Adam 

 Lindsay Gordon's from an old battered copy that 

 I always carried in my tucker box. One poem in 

 especial, " Lex Talionis," always appeals to me. 

 In this Gordon says that the only excuse for the 

 enjoyment of shooting such game as pheasants, 

 hares, etc., and the other animals that cannot hit 

 back is, that a man must also be prepared, when 

 necessary, to take his chance with dangerous game. 



" Shall we, hard hearted to their fates, thus 



Soft hearted shrink from our own. 

 When the measure we mete is meted to us, 



When we reap as we've always sown. 

 Shall we who for pastime have squandered life, 



Who are styled the ' Lords of Creation,' 

 Recoil from our chance of more equal strife, 



And our risk of retaliation ? 



" Though short is the dying pheasant's pain, 



Scant pity you may well spare, 

 And the partridge slain is a triumph vain, 



And a risk that a child may dare. 

 You feel when you lower the smoking gun 



Some ruth for yon slaughtered hare, 

 And hit or miss in your selfish fun, 



The widgeon has little share. 



" But you've no remorseful qualms or pangs 

 When you kneel by the grizzly's lair, 

 On that conical bullet your sole chance hangs, 

 'Tis the weak one's advantage fair, 



