ARTHUR YOUNG and I are sitting in a blind near the Sironera River, waiting for game, our long sharp arrows and strong graceful bows by our side. This morning we are photographing game, and if chance presents a fair shot we will take it with the bow. While we wait I write this note.
The past week has been a strenuous one for us and for the lions. This completes our second week in Tanganyika and we have seen over ninety different lions. A game hog with his battery of rifles could have killed fully a third of these noble beasts. We have taken the pelts of twelve.
Of this number we have shot four with the bow and arrow and eight with the gun. These latter were lions that charged at close quarters after we attempted to photograph them, or after having shot at them with arrows.
In some instances the charges have been terrific and the oncoming animal has been stopped at a few paces
from our group. The gun on these occasions is a life saving institution, but from an archer's standpoint it is a confession of weakness, and as archers we hereby confess our utter incapacity to stop charging lions without tackle. The part the gun man plays in the game we look upon as a necessary evil so far as we are concerned. In itself, it is of course a fair sport, but one so often told in African tales that there is no great novelty in it. Any good game shot equipped with the requisite artillery can and does succeed at this lion business.
To be charged by a galloping, grunting, deadly lion, is exhilarating, especially when one has the feeling of security given by modern explosives and rifle perfection. You can stand as I do, and calmly snap the camera.
But that is not the saga we would sing. That is an oft told tale of the modern "mighty hunter." We would sing of the bow, the weapon that gave man his first triumph over his predatory enemies and crowned his brow with the laurels of victory in battle.
In the bow and flying shaft man hurls his own soul at the mark. It is part of him, and when he strikes, he has fairly won his game. He calls on no magic from the clouds, no favors from the gods.
But the bow has its limitations, otherwise modern ingenuity would not have sought mightier weapons.
The limitations of the bow can be supplemented and greatly advanced by the use of allied primitive arms. We speak of the shield and the spear. These are comrades in arms. These are the very things we want in our archaic pursuit of dangerous game.
On these very plains where we today are assaulting lions, two years ago A. J. Kline brought a small band of African natives, the Nandi. Ten of these men attacked and killed three charging lions with their spears. Absolutely nude except for their gorgeous headdress, armed with spears, throwing knives and buffalo hide shields, they challenged and overcame one lion after another with utmost bravery. Kline took moving pictures of them as they received the infuriated attack on their shields and annihilated the oncoming beast with their spears. That is real sport, compared with which the white man's gun game is pitiable.
We could do this too, if we had the numbers and the requisite practice, for the white man can do what any man can do, and usually does it better. Gladly would we risk injury for the thrill of such a triumph. With the bow to hurl defiance and skillfully strike at a distance, then with the spear to meet the charge if needed, our sport would indeed be a royal one, fit for men and lions.