The Best Adventure and Exploration Stories Ever Told

by Stephen Brennan

  “He was lying in his cage when she arrived, heedless of the staring and chatting crowd about it, quite blind and ailing. She looked at him a moment, then called: “Nero!” Instantly he rose to his feet, uttered the peculiar note of welcome which he reserved only for her (as household cats often do for their friends), and sprang towards the remembered voice so impetuously that he dashed himself against the bars of his cage and rolled over backward, half stunned, upon its floor.

  “She went to the authorities of the Jardin des Plantes at once and bought her old pet back from them, took him home with her to By, and kept and tended him until his death. He died in the chateau itself, at the foot of the great staircase, clinging piteously to her with his huge paws at the last, as if entreating not to be forsaken. And she was so sure of his devotion that she dared hold and caress him, even in his death struggle. She was not mistaken in her confidence, for Nero’s last movement was a faint and feeble attempt to lick her hands.”

  “You see,” said Rosa Bonheur to her visitor as she ended the story, thoughtfully ruffling the name of her new lion as she spoke, “to be really beloved by wild beasts, you must really love them.”

  An old lion story, which in the light of Rosa Bonheur’s experience need not be doubted, is told in the history of the Crusades, when it is related that Geoffrey de la Tour, one of the Knights who went upon the first Crusade to the Holy Land, as he rode through a forest suddenly heard a cry of distress. Hoping to rescue some unfortunate sufferer, he rode boldly into the thicket; but what was his astonishment when he beheld a lion with a large serpent coiled round his body? To relieve the distressed was the duty of every true knight. With a single stroke of his sword he killed the serpent, and extricated the lion from his perilous situation.

  From that hour the thankful animals constantly accompanied his deliverer, whom he followed like a dog and never displayed his natural ferocity but at his command. At length the Crusade terminated, and the knight prepared to sail for Europe. He had wished to take his faithful lion with him; but the master of the vessel in which he sailed would not admit him on board, and he was obliged to leave him on shore.

  The lion, when separated from his beloved master, first began to roar hideously; and, seeing the ship diverging from him, plunged into the waves and endeavoured to swim after it. But all his efforts were in vain. At length, his strength exhausted, he sank; and the ocean engulfed a generous animal whose fidelity had well deserved a better safe. More adventurous, but surely not so interesting, are the stories of lion-hunting told by Mr. Selous, Captain Melliss, and others, who, veritable Nimrods, seem to love hunting for the sake of hunting, and who appear to calculate “sport” arithmetically. Among the many African adventures described by Mr. Selous is one which may be quoted from Animal Life of a night passed in a temporary hut built by his Kaffirs as a shelter from which to shoot lions, which were baited by the carcass of an ox placed ten paces away. Soon after dark, footsteps were heard outside on the dry leaves, and then some dark object loomed upon beyond the carcass of the ox. It might be a hyena, especially as it held its head up. But it passed the ox and came near the hut. From its boldness it ought to be a lion. At that instant two more vague forms appeared, and the one first seen came still nearer, and presently was within three yards of Mr. Selou’s rifle.

  Mr. Selous fired, and the report, loud as it was in the silence of the night, was at once “dwarfed and drowned by the terrific roaring grunts of the wounded lion.” A few moments more, and gurgling noise assured the hunter that the beast was at the point of death.

  Even while this was passing, and almost before Mr. Selous had got another cartridge into his rifle, a second lion came up and he fired again. The roar that followed could have been heard a mile away. It was followed by moans, and then by stillness. The second lion was dead.

  Mr. Selous whispered to his companion that the sport was probably over for that night, but the words were hardly out of his mouth before they heard some animal breathing within a few feet of them. The next instant the hut was shaken, and one of the loose branches of its outer covering was torn off.

  Another lion was there, and was trying to get in! It tore off one bough after another, and soon came to place at which the men had entered. That was now blocked with poles. There the lion stopped, and from the noises—it was too dark to see anything—it was plain that he was trying to get his paw through.

  Finding it impossible to see the beast, and fearing that he would topple the whole structure over upon their heads, Mr. Selous pushed his rifle between the poles in the direction of the sounds, and fired at a venture. This report, like the others, was answered by the most terrific “grunting roars,” followed by moans.

  “Three lions in about five minutes,” one of the men said to the other. That was pretty good luck.

  There were two more of the beasts, but it was not likely that they would venture near the hut, so the men lay down. Before midnight they several times heard some animal sniffing round the back of the hut; but it never came in front of the shooting holes, nor did it touch the poles, thought sometimes the sniffings were very loud and came right up to the hut.

  Before very long it was plain that the remaining two lions were still present—“less than ten yards from the muzzles of the rifles”—though absolutely nothing could be seen. For hours they lay devouring the carcass of the ox, crunching the bones, and now and then snarling at each other.

  One curious feature of the case is mentioned by Mr. Selous.

  “It would be supposed,” he says, “that to lie thus in the wilds of Africa within ten yards of a couple of lions feeding noisily, and sometimes snarling loudly, would be enough to keep one awake; yet to show how ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ I may mention that twice I had to wake my young companion, and tell him not to snore, as the noise might disturb the lions.”

  The upshot of the matter was that the two lions went away before the first ray of light, and at day break the two men found two lions lying dead not far from the hut. The third one they could not find, although they had no doubt it lay dead in the thick bush and grass within a few hundred yards.

  “Three lions in about five minutes,” as the man said, and yet it took as many ages to produce them. Lion-hunting was a very different thing before the introduction of firearms gave the human side of the argument the greater weight. It may be a very courageous thing for the modern traveler armed with the best appliances and accompanied by servants carrying an unlimited supply to face an animal having no means of defence but those which nature gave him; but what must it have been to our ancestors, who were not only without such advantageous aids, but who had to fight an animal of even larger size and powers.

  Some years ago there were discovered in a cave on the French side of the Pyrenees—the cave of Herm—some remains of prehistoric man, such as arrowheads and other implements made of flint, mingled with the bones of animals which, like the men of those ancient days, have disappeared. Among these remains is the jaw of the celebrated cave-lion, an animal which must have been a most formidable enemy to his human contemporaries.

  The study of this jaw has thrown some new light upon the characteristics of the cave-lion, indicating that it was intermediate in its bodily structure between the lion and the tiger. The imagination is strangely moved by the suggestion as to the kind of life that was led by the early representatives of our race upon the earth, forced to battle, even for the possession of the caves in which they dwelt, with fierce and powerful beasts, and that, too, at a time when only the rudest weapons had been invented, and when bodily strength and agility must have been their main dependence in such contests.

  Lion-hunting is, however, still dangerous enough, even when the hunter’s health and strength are of the best. But an inveterate sportsman does not count cost, and the author of “Sport in East Central Africa” gives an account of a foolhardy adventure which he seems to have enjoyed. He was ill with fever in a little settlement of blacks, but since lions were in the neighbourhood
he must needs insist upon having the carcass of a boar placed as bait not far from his hut; and although his legs were too weak to allow him to walk a dozen steps, he had himself propped against the door-jamb, and laid his double-barrelled rifle across his knees.

  It was nearly one o’clock, he says, when the lions gave notice of their whereabouts. I heard the heavy grunting sighs of three or four of them as they moved about in the scrub two hundred yards away. Then followed a series of rushes, as they leaped down the bank of the creek and lapped noisily at the water. Next came a terrified voice from a neighbouring hut.

  “White man, we are going,” it said, and the “boys” rushed pell-mell from their shelter some passing in front of me, others behind me, making for a grove of trees.

  Scarcely had the first of them got well outside the huts, before it seemed as if a lion were right amongst them, as, with deep, savage grunts, it dashed past my hut, bounding through the scrub in close pursuit.

  Suddenly a yell rang out from the darkness, and I was convinced that one of my blacks was being devoured; but I was too weak to stand, and was powerless to act.

  After some further noise and confusion, I heard a lion treading over the dead near by. Then came a prolonged muffled sound, half-roar, half-moan, uttered in a deep voice, which even under the circumstances I recognised as profoundly musical. Then there was a heavy but silent football as the beast walked to the back of my hut, and thrusting his nose amongst the thatched grass, sniffed loudly till I could see the lighter stalks stirring with his breath and hear the rustling when he endeavoured to insert a paw between the interstices of the wattles.

  Each instant I expected the whole structure to collapse, but luckily the beast forbore to take a mean advantage, which would have secured my destruction. I should have fired, had I not been afraid of setting fire to the hut.

  At length the brutes cleared out, uttering deep growls. They had destroyed one hut and pretty much ruined two more, not to speak of smashing the hut next mine, which contained all my stores. I could hear them there, making a terrific noise, snuffing, grunting and snarling, breaking sticks and clanking metal, while every now and then one would leap down the bank into the water and then come tearing back, breathing heavily and growling low. Yet not a whisker hair did one of them show in the firelight in front of me.

  The excitement did me good. The next morning I was up and about in pyjamas and an ulster. Not one of the boys had been injured, although one had had a marvelous escape. The lions were close upon him as he reached a tree. He sprang at a branch, and in his terror seized the leg of another black who had clambered up before him. Fearing lest he, too, should fall into the lion’s maw, the other fellow kicked his leg clear, so that the unfortunate fugitive fell to the ground, uttering the yell I had heard.

  Why the nearest lion did not seize him, I cannot say. The boy explained that it merely growled as he scrambled to his feet and climbed up another tree as fast as his black legs could shin.

  Captain Melliss, who met with great success as a lion-hunter, had gone on “a shooting trip” into the interior of Somaliland, in East Africa. At Berbera he procured ten camels, two donkeys, and twelve Somalis, and with this caravan set forth in pursuit of lions. After a march of some days, news reached him on afternoon that two lions had been seen that morning out on the plain. His pony was saddled, and with three Somalis he set out at a brisk pace. Away and away they rode, till the speed and the heat began to tell on the pony. At last the wildeyed Somali who had brought word to the camp pointed to a clump of bushes defined against the horizon some miles in advance. Onward the party rode, the bushes grew more and more distinct, and at last the Somali cried, “There are the lions,” just as Captain Melliss caught sight of two yellow animals lying outside the bushes.

  “Here,” says the captain, “I had two lions, actually waiting for me, all to myself, a vast plain on all sides, clear of jungle as a lawn, not another bush in sight. I was going to get them or they to get me. Could the situation have been more perfect?”

  The afternoon was wearing away, and he was in a hurry to begin, though he regretted afterwards that he had not sat down awhile and tasted the full rapture of the moment. He rode within a hundred yards of the bush, pulled up, gave orders to his men how to proceed, and then dismounted, with Jama, one of his assistants, who was to walk behind him carrying a second gun.

  The lions let the two men come within a hundred yards. Then they rose— “huge, yellow brutes”—and retired through the bush to the other side. The men circled the bush, and presently the captain came upon one of them—“a magnificent lion”— lying down not fifty yards away, and facing the hunter.

  “I sat down promptly, and fired at his shoulder,” the captain says. “As the bullet struck him he leaped into the air, and then stood uttering savage coughing roars. The majesty of the grand brute I shall never forget, as he stood there with his great jaws open, breathing out his wrath. There was a grand; furious indignant air about him that made one feel rather small, as being an unprovoked aggressor. His roars were nothing very tremendous, but his open hanging jaws were most impressive.”

  The lion was disabled, it was plain. Captain Melliss fired again, but missed, and the beast attempted to charge, but fell forward, and was killed by two shots from the second gun.

  Then the hunter ran to his pony, and galloped off after the other lion, which two of his men had been instructed to watch. Yes, there he was, facing the two horsemen. Captain Melliss rode up, dismounted, though the lion “looked in an exceedingly nasty temper” and welcomed the intruder with a show of teeth and much snarling.

  At a distance of fifty yards the hunter sat down, fired between the lion’s eyes, and then jumped to his feet.

  “I was not a bit too soon,” he says. “At the shot the lion sprang up with a furious roar. I had a lightning glimpse of him rearing on his hind legs pawing the air. Then he came for me. It was a fierce rush across the ground, no springing that I could see.

  “How close he got before I fired I cannot say; but it was very near. I let him come on, aiming the muzzles of the rifle at his chest. Jama says he was about to spring when I pulled the trigger and ran back a pace or two to one side, but as I did so I saw through the smoke that the lion was stopped within a few paces of me.

  “The second gun and Jama were not as near as they might have been. The lion struggled up on his hind quarters, uttering roars. I rammed two cartridges into my rifle, and fired again, and the grand brute fell over dying.”

  The Englishman was in a great state of jubilee as he rode back to the camp, and the Somalis were very merry. One of them broke into an impromptu song, full of compliments for the mighty hunter. The next day people poured into camp from all directions, all anxious to see the lion’s heads. One of the beasts was reported to have killed several persons.

  “It was a great day for Captain Melliss when he shot five lions in one afternoon, or rather in one half-hour. This was in Somaliland. He had been out for the forenoon, and both he and his pony were pretty well fatigued; but when some one brought word of several lions out on the plain, about eight miles away, there was no resisting the temptation. Off he went with two Somalis, and at last, when his pony had “no more canter in him,” they came in sight of some horsemen who had been keeping watch of the game until the Englishman should arrive.

  Captain Melliss jumped to the ground, handed his pony to one of his men, crammed his pockets with cartridges, and ran toward a pair of lionesses which were walking calming through the grass. Meanwhile he was in a fever of excitement, for the nearer Somalis were shouting, “Five lions! Five lions!” In the hunter’s own words, it was a “dream of bliss.”

  Not to make too long a story, he shot both the lionesses, and then another, though his arm was very unsteady from his exhausting ride, and in a minute more galloped after the fourth— a “yellow beauty.” She was making for a distant line of jungle, but he cut her off.

  “Suddenly,” he says, “she stopped, swung round, and
looked at me. I pulled up too, and the next moment she was charging straight for me. I thought I was caught, for my pony was dead beat; but he, too, saw the danger, and with equal suddenness he turned tail, and we made a flying retreat.”

  The lioness did not long pursue, but lay down in the grass. The Englishman waiting till one of the Somalis came up; then he dismounted and proceeded to load, while the lioness “made it unpleasant” for him by a continuous angry growling, as if she were coming on at every moment.

  “At last I was loaded, and having walked forward a little way, sat down and fired at her chest. At the shot, a very shaky one, which only wounded her inside the forearm, she sprang up and charged.

  “I jumped to my feet and aimed at her chest, but, good heavens, how my arm shook! To and fro swayed the muzzle of the rifle, now on her, now very much off her, and for the life of me I could not steady myself. My second gun was nowhere, and my right barrel empty. It looked bad for me, I thought, and I must hang on to my only shot until she was almost on me.

  “How long that wait of a second or two seemed, while the lioness charged over the forty paces of level ground between us I very well remember. More than once my finger pressed more heavily on the trigger, but I held on, fortunately, as I believe.

  “On and on she comes, and still my aim wavers. Now she is within eight or ten paces, and in another instant I must fire, when, to my great surprise and relief, she stops short right before me, and glances to her left.

  “I look at her in astonishment, see her right shoulder exposed, change my aim instantly and fire. The thinning smoke reveals her stretched on her side.”

  The New York Sun prints an amusing tale which is not impossible, but the reader may receive it with as many ounces of allowance as he thinks necessary. It is connected with the wreck of a circus train in a rather wild Southern country. Many of the cages of the menagerie were broken, it appears, and their occupants had full opportunity to escape to the woods and fields. While all hands were waiting the arrival of a wrecking-train, an old coloured man, with a business look about him, approached the circus manager.