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Saidi ben Nasory, a young Arab living on the coconut-island of Mb were, in the Rufiji delta, woke in the dead of night and heard loud braying from his only donkey, which he used to transport his dried coconut kernels to market. Saidi suspected that a snake or a python was frightening the animal, and he seized his electric torch and a machete. His wife and two children, a boy and a girl, followed him. The light from the torch revealed a terrifying sight— two lions were leaping at and clawing the tethered donkey. Saidi hastily ordered his wife and children to return to the small house and bring his rifle. By the time the weapon was in his hands however, the chain fastening the donkey had broken and the plucky animal was making good speed through the coconut plantation, hotly pursued by the lions. Running hard, rifle in one hand and torch in the other, Saidi followed for two miles the sounds of fleeing donkey and its attackers. When the sounds ceased he followed the spoor, with the aid of his torch, shouting loudly at the lions and threatening dire revenge. Suddenly he came upon his elder brother's house, and there on the mud veranda lay his donkey, badly clawed, but alive. As a Christian might fling himself before a shrine, so had the donkey fallen on the threshold of the head of the family. There he lay and had his wounds attended to by the rough surgery of the Arabs. The claw rips were sfewn up and coarse salt and washing blue were applied to stop the bleeding. The veranda became his hospital bed. Very early in the morning, Saidi told his boy to ask the local chief to beat the alarm and rally drum. In response to its peculiarly expressive and rousing tattoo, about sixty natives turned up, some with primitive muzzle-loading guns and shotguns, but the majority carrying only spears. Saidi led his army in the tracks of the lions until they came to a deep tidal channel with banks of bottomless mud. There the lions had crossed to their lair. The tide then had been out, but now there was ten feet of sea in the creek, and some crocodiles into the bargain. But the natives of the Rufiji are all sworn to united effort against the wild animals which threaten to drive them from their settlements, and the whole bunch began to swim across, taking courage from their numbers. Two young men who could not swim, but who nevertheless took the plunge, gasped and spluttered that they were " dying of water " before they sank. The others laughed at their struggles for a while and then rescued them. Suddenly all laughter ceased. Two lions had risen from the cover of the short grass growing round a tree, scarcely a dozen yards from the water. Immediately there was a scramble for the trees and in a few seconds the place looked like a kind of rookery. But there were not enough trees to go round. It was then discovered that the place was a small island about one-sixteenth of an acre across. Deep tidal creeks surrounded the spot so that by day the lions had a wonderful hiding place, and shelter from the heat of the day under the shade of the big tree. Mwidini Ugama, a local husky with coal-black skin, took the lead and shot one lion through the head. It dropped stone dead—a big-maned male. The female then turned on those natives who had not yet found trees and caused a hurried flight into the deep water. An Arab called Selimani bin Saidi then leapt forward with a Mauser and shot the lioness through the brain. Enthusiastic congratulations broke out and each hero's individual adventures were related until it seemed that all Babel was let loose. After a time, breath was exhausted, and poles were cut from the mangrove trees to carry the carcases back to the village. Sixteen men—eight to each carcase—carried the lions to Mbwera. There the beasts were skinned and their fat extracted for medicinal use. During the night a hyena took one skin away from the place where it had been pegged out to dry, and next morning it was also seen that another lion, bigger than the two which had been killed, had come and examined the skinned carcases. This third lion had then gone into the cattle pen of one Abdulrahamani and killed and devoured three sheep and wantonly destroyed two others. It had ignored cattle and goats in the same pen. Two Arabs and two natives followed the spoor into the mangrove swamps and near some wild date palms they came on the lion eating a sheep's carcase it had carried there. One of the natives shot it through the belly and dropped it, but the beast rose again almost immediately, and made off in the direction of a deep and muddy delta channel. Following quickly, the quartet were just in time to catch the lion swimming across this water. They shot at its head and shoulders with an unusual accuracy and the marauder was killed outright. A canoe was brought and the carcase towed to shore. During this two-day lion hunt in Mbwere, no single native was injured in any way, and after three days the clawed donkey returned to his home and eventually to good health: even the broken chain was welded by a native blacksmith, so the whole affair can be said to have been most successful. The broad smile of one of Africa's unspoiled savages was once instrumental in leading me to an exciting experience with a "ghost" lion. I was looking for a place to pitch my camp before beginning an elephant-hunt in a district suffering much from their depredations. The two settlements visited by the marauders lay three miles apart, and half way between them I came on a man building a banda. He sat on the roof thatching with cut stems of dom palm leaves. As I passed, with my followers and loads, he looked down at me with a captivating grin. He told me that here he was going to cultivate millet and this his wife, brother-in-law and sundry children were all going to help. I liked his pioneering spirit, the quality of the structure he was building, and I fancied the spot myself. It possessed a large and spreading wild-fig tree, which meant green pigeon, and it was near an extensive grassy plain where hartebeestes, wildebeests and other antelope would provide a supply of fresh meat to feed my men and myself. It was a convenient place to reach either of the two settlements suffering from the raiding elephants. I talked to the builder and he agreed to enlarge, complete and sell me the banda for ten shillings. He would build others nearby for himself and his kin. My loads were dumped and we went on to hunt meat. My followers began to throw much cold water on my plans for my house. "That place," they said, "is haunted by a lion which is not a lion at all but the dead wife of a sultani. No one but an outcast fool like Korogeo would dream of living there, and maybe he is a witch himself and in league with the ghost lion. Anyway, he is not one of us, and not even a Mahommedan." All this served merely to interest me further, and cast a cloak of glamour over the site of my new camp. I asked them more about it. " Every rainy season, when the grass reaches the height of two men, a lion comes and lives by the fig-tree, devouring passers-by. There is no other tree for them to climb to safety, and, as you know, no one can climb the smooth trunk of a fig-tree." " Why don't you put a ladder against the tree? " I asked. "It is quite useless, and the lion cannot be killed because, as we have told you, the lion is not a lion but a spirit. Wait and see if you are still in the district at that time. What we say is true. Wait and see! " Elephants seemed to fancy that country and their continued visits to the growing maize and millet kept me busy until the grass became ten feet high and pioneer Korogeo's millet twelve and more feet tall. He had built a small hut for himself on the far side of the road from my banda and his brother-in-law, whom I called Kifaru (rhinoceros) because he had a long wart on the point of his nose, had built another near it. The rains had been heavy and the once-open road was now a narrow muddy footpath full of puddles and almost concealed by the towering and overhanging grass. Then the lion came. It chose a dead-still, damp night, such as is often experienced in the tropical lowlands of Africa. Water from the last shower of rain dripped occasionally from the grass stems or eaves and from the big fig-tree. The intermittent chorus of frogs and the chirrup of cicadas or some similar insect were the only local sounds. From a village seven miles away came plainly through the humid night air the steady beat of a drum at a ngoma, or native dance. A sudden yell, more indignant than frightened, came from Korogeo in his hut. Bwana! There is a dudu trying to get into my house," he complained. Dudu in the local language dialect means any unwelcome intruder in the animal line from fleas to elephants. I was quickly at his hut, lamp in one hand and rifle in the other. I could see nothing, and Koregeo came out— with a grin on his face, as usual. We searched round the hut with the lantern and found the fresh spoor of a lion. It had begun clawing at the reed and grass wall, by the look of the grass debris, but Korogeo's yell and my response had apparently made it clear off. I grunted and we went back to our respective beds. My loaded rifle lay beside me. Within half an hour, loud yells from the women and children in Kifaru's hut broke on the night air. I was there in an instant with lamp and gun, but there was no lion. Fresh deep spoor was imprinted in the sandy soil near the hut, and a mass of grass torn from the wall of the hut lay on the ground. Somewhere in the surrounding circle of darkness, beyond the gleam of the lantern, lurked that silent and persistent beast who was, so they said, not a lion but a ghost. Mosquitoes were biting my bare legs, so I went back to my banda and wrapped my raincoat around my legs to keep off the vicious insects. I sat in the deck chair, put my rifle on my knees and a lamp beside me, and set the reed door ajar so that I could get outside quickly. Korogeo lay on the mud floor beside me, covered with his blanket and holding his spear in his hand. Another half-hour passed and silence reigned, except for the frogs, insects and distant drum. I began to drowse. How long I remained like that I do not know, but I awoke with a sudden start. My heart was beating loudly and there was a chilly sensation all up to my spine. Some noise or movement had wakened me. There was a strong smell of animal—lion, I thought. I did not move, beyond grasping my rifle more firmly and releasing the safety catch to that it was ready to fire. An object in the open doorway caught my eye. It looked at first like an old bath sponge. It was in fact the paw of a lion. There came a blinding flash and a deafening report, a shower of dust and small fragments of dry thatch fell on me, and Korogeo leapt to his feet beside me, spear in hand. I had instinctively fired through the reed door—had not even lifted the gun to my shoulder to aim. Simultaneously there came a loud and terrifying roar of pain and a lion went crashing off a few yards into the long grass and lay coughing and snorting. I slipped through the doorway and emptied my magazine in the direction of the noise. Two of my shots were followed by dull " plumps", indicating hits in the animal's carcase, and in half a minute the coughing and snorting ceased. Korogeo, who stood beside me with the lamp in his hand, began to throw sticks, mud and abuse at the place where the lion lay. A big lump of mud he moulded in his hand bumped off the beast with the sound of a muffled drum-beat. Kifura wanted to throw firewood, but Korogeo ordered him to put them on the fire of his hut instead, and with the blazing brands and my lamp, we cautiously crept forward and soon found and inspected an old rotten-toothed lioness. The women set up a shrill ululation, which soon brought the nearby villages en masse to the scene. Boughs were pulled down from a dry limb of the fig-tree to make a big fire, and the whole hamlet, men, women and children cake-walked round it, yelling for Korogeo's village is now a big one and they often talk at night, when they are gathered round their fires, of the ghost-lion, and the remarkable fact that the white man is not afraid of ghosts. . . . "To my knowledge, this lion has killed and eaten thirty-three men, women and children around Manero. He is also thought to be the killer who turns up at Nyanga and Ruangwa, because the ■killings never happen at the two places at the same time." Thus spoke the bearded Swiss "broder", as the mission natives call their lay-brothers. These lay-brothers did all the industry and carpentering work at Manero on the high country south of the Mbemkuru River in Southern Tanganyika. Carpentry and industry and ingenuity were all evident in the lion trap beside the concrete tank of water in his vegetable garden. Two fat goats were chewing grass within the inner compartment of the wood-stake enclosure. Strong hardwood stakes separated them from the open entrance-hall of the trap, into which it was hoped the lion would enter. In the floor of this entrance, grass concealed a strong-jawed steel trap weighing about sixty pounds. A chain and three-hooked anchor were attached to it to catch on bushes, roots or vines and to dig deeply into the soil, to retard the progress of the escaping lion and to ensure that the lion left an easily discernible trail. There was also a loaded rifle tied muzzle down over the entrance in such a way that the entering lion would touch off a spring that would fire a bullet into his back, head or neck before he reached the goats. Only three feet from the rifle were the fresh pug-marks of a lion deeply impressed in the soft soil about the well. He had come there in the night to drink, for at that time of the year it offered the only water for many miles around in that land of soil erosion and forest denudation. I heard no rifle shot that night and the lion alarm call— a staccato drum tattoo—sounded the next morning at a settlement twenty miles east. I could sympathize with the hunters, for I knew the difficulty of hunting such lions when the local natives will not help because of their superstition that the lion is a devil and quite invulnerable to bullets or spears. I remembered a game ranger telling me how his gunbearer was taken behind him, near here one evening, when they were walking along a path to their camp. All he heard was his rifle clattering to the ground and then the noise in the tall grass as the victim was dragged off. I thought of the little girl sleeping outside the hut on the Ruvuma—the hut was full of privileged men—who had been bitten through the groin by a lion and died almost immediately, although the men chased the lion away. And I thought too of the pitiful remains which were all that a lion left of another little girl he had snatched from her mother's side while they were guarding pots of pombe, or millet beer, which had been assembled in readiness for a beer-party the next day. My work took me round to a place forty-four miles south-east and there I met a missionary-priest who told me that he thought the Manero lion was the same one which visited his area and to his knowledge had killed twenty people. So I was glad when eventually I heard that a man-eater, who I hope was the Manero-Myangao man-eater, had been killed by game scouts. These men face death daily in the control of the elephants, and all for a few shillings a week: but they also get the government uniform and badge, which are worth more to them than money. Sometimes riatives in Southern Tanganyika build a stockade, or boma, round a pride of lions while the lions are taking their mid-day siesta. When the sinking sun makes the sleepers arise, they find a tall barricade on all sides. It is really remarkable how quickly the natives construct a sound boma. The material, of course, is all at hand. Strong ropes are made from strips of bark and the stems of the bushes which grow in that country are hardness itself. The lashing together and pounding of the sharp-pointed poles into the ground is done with a muscular skill bt)rn, I think, of the use of heavy wooden pestles in pounding grain. Yet it does not appear to make enough noise to frighten away the lions. Then come the muskets. Men armed with these long-barrelled, muzzle-loaded weapons line the stockade. Other heroes climb along the tops of the trees within the stockade. One day they took me with them complete with camera and rifle, and I witnessed the destruction by these muskets of four lions in as many minutes. Their Tower of London muskets, more than a hundred years old and loaded with iron ball and slugs, were deadly killers at close range. I wanted to photograph the heroes and the crowd of youths who had helped with construction, but they all walked off, too tired to listen to such suggestions. The game warden of Tanganyika once remarked to me: "In one end of our territory we protect lions and in the other we exterminate them." That is because they have become aggressive, which he attributed to the hunger of the lions, as the game had been thinned out by native hunters. But this cannot be altogether true, for in Ankole game is plentiful, but the lions there are vicious and man-eating. Mail-carriers have on occasions had to climb trees and watch lions devour or try to devour the contents of their mail-bags. South-east of Tunduru, in Southern Tanganyika, where I was observing game for disease, some years ago, six lions raided the home of a mission teacher. They smashed his hen-house, which was mounted on forked posts, but the fowls leaped away and " froze " into strange attitudes and shapes like inanimate objects, as'I have so often seen them do. In this way they deceived the lions, who then ate a quantity of millet-flour from a bin, chewed the hide off the school-rally drum, and carried off a wicker basket and bit it to pieces. Then they ran off into the bush, where they encountered and killed a waterbuck. Those lions must have been experimenting with their diet! | ||
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Wow. Thank you. ______________________ Hunting: I'd kill to participate. | |||
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Thanks for the effort. So the author? Have a good weekend. ------------------------------- Will / Once you've been amongst them, there is no such thing as too much gun. --------------------------------------- and, God Bless John Wayne. NRA Benefactor, GOA, NAGR _________________________ "Elephant and Elephant Guns" $99 shipped. “Hunting Africa's Dangerous Game" $20 shipped. red.dirt.elephant@gmail.com _________________________ If anything be of note, let it be he was once an elephant hunter, hoping to wind up where elephant hunters go. | |||
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RUFIJI by R.De La Bere Barker, 1956 | |||
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Sounds like he was one busy guy. ------------------------------- Will / Once you've been amongst them, there is no such thing as too much gun. --------------------------------------- and, God Bless John Wayne. NRA Benefactor, GOA, NAGR _________________________ "Elephant and Elephant Guns" $99 shipped. “Hunting Africa's Dangerous Game" $20 shipped. red.dirt.elephant@gmail.com _________________________ If anything be of note, let it be he was once an elephant hunter, hoping to wind up where elephant hunters go. | |||
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A good Saturday morning read, even with jet lag. Will J. Parks, III | |||
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Enjoyable read Saeed, thanks. Gray Ghost Hunting Safaris http://grayghostsafaris.com Phone: 615-860-4333 Email: hunts@grayghostsafaris.com NRA Benefactor DSC Professional Member SCI Member RMEF Life Member NWTF Guardian Life Sponsor NAHC Life Member Rowland Ward - SCI Scorer Took the wife the Eastern Cape for her first hunt: http://forums.accuratereloadin...6321043/m/6881000262 Hunting in the Stormberg, Winterberg and Hankey Mountains of the Eastern Cape 2018 http://forums.accuratereloadin...6321043/m/4801073142 Hunting the Eastern Cape, RSA May 22nd - June 15th 2007 http://forums.accuratereloadin...=810104007#810104007 16 Days in Zimbabwe: Leopard, plains game, fowl and more: http://forums.accuratereloadin...=212108409#212108409 Natal: Rhino, Croc, Nyala, Bushbuck and more http://forums.accuratereloadin...6321043/m/6341092311 Recent hunt in the Eastern Cape, August 2010: Pics added http://forums.accuratereloadin...261039941#9261039941 10 days in the Stormberg Mountains http://forums.accuratereloadin...6321043/m/7781081322 Back in the Stormberg Mountains with friends: May-June 2017 http://forums.accuratereloadin...6321043/m/6001078232 "Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading" - Thomas Jefferson Every morning the Zebra wakes up knowing it must outrun the fastest Lion if it wants to stay alive. Every morning the Lion wakes up knowing it must outrun the slowest Zebra or it will starve. It makes no difference if you are a Zebra or a Lion; when the Sun comes up in Africa, you must wake up running...... "If you're being chased by a Lion, you don't have to be faster than the Lion, you just have to be faster than the person next to you." | |||
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Saeed: Thanks! A good read. wc375 | |||
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Thanks for the entertainment Saeed. | |||
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Thanks Saeed!! DRSS | |||
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Interesting reading! For something more recent on the same subject, I can recommend this report: Baldus, Dr. Rolf D., Tanzania Wildlife Discussion Paper No. 41, Lion Conservation in Tanzania Leads to Serious Human - Lion Conflicts - With a Case Study of a Man-Eating Lion Killing 35 People (GTZ Wildlife Programme in Tanzania, Wildlife Division, Dr. Rolf D. Baldus, Ed., Dar es Salaam, 2004). Here is a link: GTZ Lion Discussion Paper [Note: This is a 1MB plus file.] The report includes, in Section 4, a hair-raising case study of an episode of man-eating by a lion on the northeastern border of the Selous, in the Rufiji District, between August 2002 and April 2004. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose! Mike Wilderness is my cathedral, and hunting is my prayer. | |||
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thank you I enjoyed reading it | |||
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a fun read - thank you very much | |||
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Saeed, An exceptional story for the weekend. I enjoyed it very much. Max .395 Family Member DRSS, po' boy member Political correctness is nothing but liberal enforced censorship | |||
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