Thinking black; 22 years without a break in the long grass of Central ...

man's back ;
BORING OUT EAST 369
and the man, smarting with pain, grips at the
lion's carotids like a vice, only, however, to get his three
fingers crunched off. But his right hand is free, and still
he clings with all the tenacity of terror to that beast's
throat— yes, clings to conquer. A gasp, a dying gurgle,
and the lioness owns up to the lordship of man—choked
stone dead. To this day, all you can get out of the
maimed hunter is a hissing intake of the breath, and a
sharp clenching of his teeth, with the staccato whine :
*' Oh !
if I only had had one tiny point of steel to jag her
with ; yes, even a nail or a needle to claw her when she
was clawing me."
But all this is exceptional, you say. Incredible as it
may seem, this getting into grips with Felis leo is not at
all uncommon. Here is my man, Kasansu, who has had
almost the identical experience, only in his case no shot
is fired, the lion frankly and fairly under-muscled. This
same long grass did it all, for although doubly armed with
gun and spear, the lion and the man were in grips before
the latter (startled, indeterminate) even remembered that
he was armed—disarmed rather, for in panic both spear
and gun were thrown to the winds. The beast, of course,
was too terribly fresh to succumb to mere throttling, so,
when they rolled over, Kasansu, by a clever wriggle,
got on to its back, and gripping the nape of the lion's
neck, willy, nilly, pinned his hairy head on the ground.
Believe it, there was much champing of the bit on the
lion's part at this curious compulsion to eat humble pie,
but the man's roaring for succour had brought on the