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Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea by James O. Brayman
page 87 of 316 (27%)
The people at the wagons saw the chase in perfection. When the lions
observed the dogs coming on, they took right up, and three of them
crossed over the sky ridge. The dogs, however, turned one rattling old
lioness, which came rumbling down through the cover, close past me. I
ran to meet her, and she came to bay in an open spot near the base of
the mountain, whither I quickly followed, and coming up within thirty
yards, bowled her over with my first shot, which broke her back. My
second entered her shoulder; and, fearing that she might hurt any of the
dogs, as she still evinced signs of life, I finished her with a third in
the breast. The bellies of all the four lions were much distended by
some game they had been gorging, no doubt a buffalo, as a large herd
started out of the jungle immediately under the spot where the noble
beasts were first disturbed.

Showers of rain fell every hour throughout the day, so I employed my men
in making feldt-schoens, or, in other words, African brogues for me.
These shoes were worthy of a sportsman, being light, yet strong, and
were entirely composed of the skins of game of my shooting. The soles
were made of either buffalo or cameleopard; the front part, perhaps, of
koodoo, or hartebeest, or bushbuck, and the back of the shoe of lion, or
hyaena, or sable antelope, while the rheimpy or thread with which the
whole was sewed, consisted of a thin strip of the skin of a steinbok.

On the forenoon of this day, I rode forth to hunt, accompanied by
Ruyter; we held west, skirting the wooded, stony mountains. The natives
had here, many years before, waged successful war with elephants, four
of whose skulls I found. Presently I came across two sassaybies, one of
which I knocked over; but, while I was loading, he regained his legs and
made off. We crossed a level stretch of forest, holding a northerly
course for an opposite range of green, well-wooded hills and valleys.
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