We both knew that man-eating lions didn't usually get sorted out in a day or so. I sneaked my eyes open but saw nothing in the pale moonlight filtering through the tall acacias. He never made a sound as I tended him, nor did I speak. , as natural ponds and flowages are called. Although I was tired, sleep came fitfully; possibly the ever-nearing roar of those lions helped keep my mind occupied. Although injured carnivores who cannot fend for themselves in a normal hunting manner may, indeed, turn to sneaking a native or two between meals, most people-preying lions are generally healthy, sleek, and often oversized specimens more than fit to pursue their normal food. I froze. We have dispatched from our book depository; items of good condition to over ten million satisfied customers worldwide. I was also given an unconfirmed report during this same conversation that one of George Adamson's lions killed and ate one of his African domestics, a cook as the tale goes. He held his crouch with his head cocked for almost a minute, watching something off to the left of the spoor. I was certain the lion could not miss the thump-crash of my heart as it jammed into the bottom of my throat in a choking lump, my mouth full of copper sulphate. Ithink we will find this eater of people this day." Yet, they kept at it until, almost at dark the last day of the safari, they heard a lion roaring a mile away. Death in the long grass by Capstick, Peter Hathaway. All rights reserved. There have been literally hundreds of man-eaters reported in the area since 1900 and, as the case of Peter Hankin so horribly demonstrates, there is still not much of a shortage.One pride, for example, the Ubena man-eaters, had been in operation for a full ten years before George Rushby, a game officer of Tanganyika (now Tanzania), and one of the greatest man-eating lion hunters of all time, began to put the screws on them in their thirty by fifty mile range in 1942. Fumbling, he loaded them both, jacking a round into each chamber. He must have already cleared it through my company or he wouldn't have known I was free. Please try again. As lions go, he was a real beaut, well over nine feet and with an anthracite neckpiece that grew down to his cuticles. By visual count we had eleven lions wandering around the trucks and tents at once, possibly a couple more in the murk we could not see. Both men, still in their underwear, ran for the Harvey hut. One paw ripped through the grass like shredded newspaper, the lion tearing chunks from the hard, wood frame with his teeth. I should have known better since Martin, my head waiter, had reported seeing a lioness with three cubs that very afternoon close to camp. We don't have any Game Department people in the area and it'll be a few days before we can get somebody up from Valley Command or Nsefu. Horn of the Hunter: The Story of an African Safari. The lion simply walked into the hut, dragged out the body of the man, and carried it off to eat.When a man-eating lion takes a human from a hut or from a ring of sleepers around a campfire, it is usually by the method of a bite in the skull, which causes instant death. That did it. I could see the tightness of his knuckles on the knobby, thornwood shaft of the spear. Locking the safety catches, he handed the .243 to Colin Matthews as he came up. But he'll settle for a cold beer as long as he has his smokes. The lion lay under a bush, after doubling back on his track in a short loop, and watched Paul track past. ""Yes, Dad, I'm all right," answered a pain-tight voice. Four years later, in the Njombe District of Tanganyika's Southern Province, Rushby was again enlisted to hunt the Njombe man-eaters, a collectivity of feline mayhem that, between the fifteen members of the grisly pride racked up a confirmed score of over 1,500 natives and colonists. Box about a Wyoming game warden. Atdusk one evening a woman was mixing a meal of. A very good read. Preview and download books by Peter Hathaway Capstick, including Death in the Long Grass, Death in the Dark Continent and many more. Few men can say they have known Africa as Capstick has known itleading safaris through lion country; tracking man-eating leopards along tangled . He rolled over, face-up on the dirt, listening to the lion chewing on the young man. One of the lions had a shot which had broken its tail--a testimony to my marksmanship. That night, back in my own camp, I took a long bath and sat smoking in the tub, with a tall glass of man's best friend at my elbow. It's one of the more interesting lion-in-camp tales I have heard.It was the first shooting day of Cox's safari with the French hunter M. Cornon, and the party had driven all day from Fort Archambeau, on the Bahr Aouk, to their hunting area on the Chari River. Over the years, my clients have probably killed 25 percent of their lions off dead elephant carcasses or nearby, where the lion has gone to sleep off his meal.Although many harassed lions will charge unwounded, the vast majority of human maulings and deaths under hunting circumstances are, logically, from wounded lions. A blind shot might kill him. During the course of a safari, one or more lion kills of natural game are usually discovered. He has no prized ivory or horn; you cannot eat him, although there are some tribes who do so for sympathetic magic; his pelt is not made into coats. If only the bloody Zambians would let a hunter carry sidearms! That lion still roams free. I could absolutely sense him. Her impact hurls the man from his bed and onto the ground. If they were made the night before, the standard procedure is to say your prayers, load your heavy rifle, and follow the tracks to the point where the lion has "lain up" for the hot daylight hours, usually sleeping in the thickest tangle of crud it can find until it cools off and darkness falls.The impossibly slow and hopefully soundless creeping through the blast-furnace heat of midday, with visibility often less than ten yards, is enough to rattle the nerves of a snake charmer. The man-eater gave a terrific tug and the claws ripped forward, tearing De Beer's scalp loose from his skull until it hung over his face like a dripping, hairy, red beret. One pussycat that wasn't going far. As thrilling as any novel, as taut and exciting as any adventure story, Peter Hathaway Capsticks. Today (April 17) coincides with Lexin. The lion, as if he had a shopping list, entered a railway car and killed the man in the company of two other whites, one of whom the lion had to stand upon to reach the sleeping Ryall in an upper berth. For proof to the contrary, it is interesting to consult the excellent table compiled by Peter Turnbull-Kemp, the well-known South African game ranger and author, on the age and condition of eighty-nine known lion man-eaters at death: 91 percent of the killers were either in "good" or "fair" condition when disposed of; only 13.3 percent were "aged" and uninjured, and a mere 4.4 percent aged and injured by any cause, including man.Aside from those lions forced through injury to a life of homicide, there are many ways that normal lions may take up man-eating. As the lioness lay chewing on his head, she may have thought that the crushing sounds she heard beneath her teeth were the breaking of the skull bone instead of those of the man's hands and fingers. The Death in the Long Grass: A Big Game Hunter's Adventures in the African Bush book is in average demand now as the rank for the book is 35,593 at the moment. Many animals that I had to previous impressions of, were described much differently than I wouldve expected. Death in the Long Grass: A Big Game Hunter's Adventures in the African Bush Hardcover - Illustrated, 15 Jan. 1978 by Peter Hathaway Capstick (Author) 992 ratings See all formats and editions Kindle Edition 10.44 Read with Our Free App Hardcover 21.11 5 Used from 17.00 6 New from 20.92 Mass Market Paperback 20.00 3 Used from 20.00 As I neared the huts, I caught the flash of a big, male lion in the probing beam, moving off into the bush and high grass. Lions are hunted for the same reason people skydive, race cars, or, in extreme cases, play Russian roulette. The walls seemed intact, as was the roof. We got within what seemed like inches of that lion, when he let out a fine roar, almost as if he didn't like us there. Baits may be deliberately laid out and hung at chest height by wire from a tree or may take the form of previously killed large game such as elephant. you have a budding, new man-eater. Watching the sun sink and waiting for time to pass, We prepare for darkness and possible death in the long grass; Moving slowly, one step and then two, we lay in position waiting for what to do . Now I observe predatory animals doing what nature intended for them to do. My nerves were further jangled when the second client screamed, "Watch it! I stopped and fingered it. Suddenly, the upper hinge had broken, and the woman lost her hold. She rolled under the bed and, hysterical with agony and fear, emerged fromthe far side of the hut near the door. At five yards she gathers her hind legs beneath her flattened, lean body, the hind claws gripping the earth for purchase. I used to watch nature shows and cringe when the lion caught the little antelope. It is, in fact, man against himself.Over the incalculably hoary ages, lion hunting has been considered one of the most noble sports, and the lion the most respected adversary of the hunter. Read less. There was a long pause and I knew he was coming. As if I was walking on a pile of sleeping mambas, I dismounted and approached the lion. You may blow a hole in his heart big enough to accommodate a navel orange, but in his condition of hyperadrenia, there will still be enough oxygen in his brain to carry his charge for a surprising distance and enough moxie left over to turn you into something that would give a hyena the dry heaves. However, if you spend the best part of eleven years, as I did, living with big, live, genuine lions all around, you might discover that your balding head never hits your pillow without that little niggling of doubt. Holding the blade low with both hands, I thrust it with every ounce of my strength into his neck, feeling the keen blade slice through meat and gristle with surprising ease. She had been too busy with Willy De Beer to realize Matthews' presence but suddenly dropped the ranger and, with a hair-raising roar, charged the prostrate boy. Over. Subjects Big game hunting, Hunting, africa. I almost blew my first lion charge by not compensating for this, but luckily the slug passed through the scalp and broke the spine above the paunch. Over. I tried to arouse those tired, intrepid hunters, Steiner and Sherwin, but I'll be damned if they had not slept through the whole thing and told me I was nuts to wake them out of a sound sleep with such a wild tale. I just read it again, and loved it just as much as when it was first published I was wishing I had listened to mother and become an accountant or a haberdasher as I slipped into a duck-walk and inched ahead. After giving up his career, the New Jersey native hunted in Central and South America before going to Africa in 1968, where he held professional hunting licenses in Ethiopia, Zambia, Botswana, and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). It was a hollow, senseless howl that I recognized as Silent. As Johnnie Cox tells it:"We would miss him, but, after all, we were well ensconced at our water hole. Self publishing . The big cat runs off into the bush where Joubert takes up the blood spoor.Over the next hour the lioness inscribes a large circle through the heavy riverine cover and incredibly, despite her wounds and the men following her, returns to the man she has killed and resumes feeding. Also, I knew there was more than one wounded lion in there, not forgetting the companion who had notreappeared nor shown himself after disappearing into the hardwoods that ringed the. After all, he had already proven ten times that he had no natural fear of man--the fear that can give the hunter an edge.I thought about Paul Nielssen's mauling in the past year within this same strip of bush, about five miles upriver. I've done it nine times and I certainly hope it never comes to ten.There are several factors that make a wounded lion soincredibly dangerous. The first time a lion returns to a human kill to finish his meal and receives a whiplash of bullet from a bad shot, you can bet the beer money he won't make the same mistake twice. I personally suspect that the increase of tourism and the expanded game reserves have taken the edge off the traditional fear lions have had of man since he first developed the sharp stick. Also, the anatomy of a lion is such that he has no skull above the eyebrows, usually just a mass of fatty tissue and mane. He was positive he was firing the rifle, in fact, became furious at me when I told him he had merely worked the bolt of the action. But the rifle, as bush-scarred as the face of its owner, is not leaning in its usual place beside the bed. Reaching their campsite, Cornonhad some mechanical difficulty with the truck that hauled provisions, tentage, and such. Of course, a pharaonic lion hunt must have made a duke's Scottish grouse drive look like a girl scout outing. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges. With humor, grace, and supreme tension, Capstick takes the reader . Half the time was spent on hands and knees peering under the dense growth for a patch of tawny hide, hoping, when you saw it that it wasn't attached to a growing halo of teeth hurtling at you in a close-quarter charge. Rooting man-eating lions out of thick cover is not my idea of good fun. Whatever may be left falls to the African Sanitary Department and, after even a few days, it's difficult to examine a piece of skullcap the size of a demitasse saucer and state unequivocally that the cause of death was a lion. With my heightened senses, I could now hear the animal padding through the soft dirt outside the hut, looking for a weak point. (1940-1996), a former Wall Street stockbroker turned professional adventurer, was critically acclaimed as the successor to Hemingway and Ruark in African hunting literature. In fact, he hardly hurried his stately exit after a disdainful glance at us. Directing Colin Matthews to rip his T-shirt into strips, he had the young man bind the wound to keep the blood out ofhis eyes. Captstick settled in Pretoria, South Africa with his wife Fiona until his death at age 56. The plot concerns a virus that kills off grass species, including rice and wheat. Gritting his teeth, he eased his head into the window, catching a glimpse of Harvey's bloody legs in a thin bar of light. Something gleamed on the dark earth, which I recognized as Silent's spear, the shaftbroken halfway. Gripping read, good way of storytelling the various bush animals, Especially liked the account fo the cape buffallo. Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2023. If I had let it eat maybe a leg or two before shooting it, all would have been well. Finished, they backed away to the truck and got out of there.Lions do very odd things to otherwise stable, soberpeople. I eventually declined the presidency of the republic and got to thinking about the consequences of having bashed this chap. My mind raced like a flywheel: What'll it be, boy, lion or crocs? "Sorry to bugger your holiday," he told me, "but something's come up . In heavy bush country men sometimes stumble onto lions that have no sense of humor. See details He seemed to hang in the air while my numbed brain screeched SHOOT! Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. A post-mortem on thebody of Peter Hankin determines that, mercifully, he died instantly of a broken neck from the lioness' first bite. Her stomach contained a small snake, a wad of chicken feathers, and most of Len Harvey's face. There was no point in continuing to follow the cold trail since darkness was only an hour off and we both knew the most heavily armed man is no match for a lion's stealth at night.Arriving back at Kampisi about dark, I had two hours to kill before my radio schedule with the D.C. Excerpted by permission. Condition: Near Fine. I already have a copy of this and I bought this one as my "lending" copy. This is easily the best of Capstick's books and the one that I can't resist going back to. It is the clearest case of not just the ancient confrontation of man against beast, but also of man deliberately putting himself in harm's way. Through all the firing, he had stayed not ten feet from the wounded one and, if the American had not spotted his creeping up on me, I would likely have been given the New Look. For amoment she hesitates, but her ancestral fear of the smell is washed over by the desperation of her hunger. That tracker turned and ran like a scared-ass ape toward camp, leaving me all alone except for one vocal lion. Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2022. Operating in a photographic safari area, professional hunter Peter Hankin has had to leave it at his hunting camp, Chitangulu, forty miles downstream. I checked the Jeffery, shook the panatella-sized cartridges to hear the satisfying rattle of cordite against the cool, brass cases, closed the rifle's action and, sitting on the bed with a cigarette and the bottle of beer, waited to see what would happen.Perhaps an hour went by, a hell of a long time when you are sitting in the dark wondering if something big and hairy is going to burst through the frail grass walls and grab you. A dark green stretch of towering, loomed ahead in the moonlight, and the killer made for it, dragging the man deep into one of the tunnels of the tangled boughs. I'll leave in an hour. Death In The Long Grass Author: Peter Hathaway Capstick ISBN: 9780312186135 Format: PDF, Mobi Release: 1977 Language: en View An account of the adventures of a big-game hunter offers glimpses of man-eating leopards, fear-maddened elephants, charging buffalo, cunning hyenas, and other great killers of the African bush country The Death Of Grass I transported him in a fireman's carry to the water, where he had a long drink, and then I returned to find the rifle, wedged in a low bush . "Death in the Long Grass" is about the author's (Peter Hathaway Capstick) experience as a white hunter in Africa, and his close encounters with the various creatures there that either wanted to eat, trample, gore, or bite him and his associates.This is not an informational guide about either hunting or Africa. We drifted slowly through the bush listening for the crunch ofbone or a low growl as the lion fed in the leafy stillness. A large male lion had been stalking him from cover and charged, grabbing him, presumably in the chest, with its teeth. Death in the Long Grass: A Big Game Hunter's Adventures in the African Bush Kindle Edition by Peter Hathaway Capstick (Author), M. Philip Kahl (Photographer) Format: Kindle Edition 964 ratings See all formats and editions Kindle $19.94 Read with Our Free App Hardcover $34.89 1 Used from $34.45 6 New from $33.51 The lion immediately swarmed over her upper body and, with a crush of fangs, dragged her quickly off.I looked at my wristwatch. ${cardName} not available for the seller you chose. (ABC Radio Darwin: Jesse Thompson) In September, an Indigenous man in Darwin was handed a fine for . Actually, all of the man-eaters I have shot or inspected after someone else killed them have been in the blush of health with the exception of one old lioness in Ethiopia who had a horribly deformed lower jaw, from the bone of which I extracted a two-and-a-half-inch chunk of iron curtain rod shot there by a hydrocephalic moron with a muzzle loader. The Man-eater of Chabunkwa, thirsty from his ninth kill, padded from the thicket to drink at the nearby river.The safari season was over and I was puttering around camp, taking care of the last-minute details of tagging trophies and sorting and packing equipment when I heard from the district commissioner of the area, who had sent a runner with a note wedged in a cleft stick asking me to come on my SSB radio as soon as I got it. 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