章节正文
saw a huge yellow head rise up, the round eyes flashing anger,
the small black-tipped ears laid back, the great fangs snarling.
The beast was not over twelve feet distant. F. immediately fired.
His shot, hitting an intervening twig, went wild. With the utmost
coolness he immediately pulled the other trigger of his double
barrel. The cartridge snapped.
"If you will kindly stoop down-" said I, in what I now remember
to be rather an exaggeratedly polite tone. As F.'s head
disappeared, I placed the little gold bead of my 405 Winchester
where I thought it would do the most good, and pulled trigger.
She rolled over dead.
The whole affair had begun and finished with unbelievable
swiftness. From the growl to the fatal shot I don't suppose four
seconds elapsed, for our various actions had followed one another
with the speed of the instinctive" target="_blank" title="a.本能的，天性的">instinctive. The lioness had growled at our
approach, had raised her head to charge, and had received her
deathblow before she had released her muscles in the spring.
There had been no time to get frightened.
We sat back for a second. A brown hand reached over my shoulder.
"Mizouri-mizouri sana!" cried Memba Sasa joyously. I shook the
hand.
"Good business!" said F. "Congratulate you on your first lion."
We then remembered B., and shouted to him that all was over. He
and the other men wriggled in to where we were lying. He made
this distance in about fifteen seconds. It had taken us nearly an
hour.
We had the lioness dragged out into the open. She was not an
especially large beast, as compared to most of the others I
killed later, but at that time she looked to me about as big as
they made them. As a matter of fact she was quite big enough, for
she stood three feet two inches at the shoulder-measure that
against the wall-and was seven feet and six inches in length. My
first bullet had hit her leg, and the last had reached her heart.
Every one shook me by the hand. The gunbearers squatted about
the carcass, skilfully removing the skin to an undertone of
curious crooning that every few moments broke out into one or two
bars of a chant. As the body was uncovered, the men crouched
about to cut off little pieces of fat. These they rubbed on their
foreheads and over their chests, to make them brave, they said,
and cunning, like the lion.
We remounted and took up our interrupted journey to camp. It was
a little after two, and the heat was at its worst. We rode rather
sleepily, for the reaction from the high tension of excitement
had set in. Behind us marched the three gunbearers, all abreast,
very military and proud. Then came the porters in single file,
the one carrying the folded lion skin leading the way; those
bearing the waterbuck trophy and meat bringing up the rear. They
kept up an undertone of humming in a minor key; occasionally
breaking into a short musicalphrase in full voice.
We rode an hour. The camp looked very cool and inviting under its
wide high trees, with the river slipping by around the islands of
papyrus. A number of black heads bobbed about in the shallows.
The small fires sent up little wisps of smoke. Around them our
boys sprawled, playing simple games, mending, talking, roasting
meat. Their tiny white tents gleamed pleasantly among the cool
shadows.
I had thought of riding nonchalantly up to our own tents, of
dismounting with a careless word of greeting-
"Oh, yes," I would say, "we did have a good enough day. Pretty
hot. Roy got a fine waterbuck. Yes, I got a lion." (Tableau on
part of Billy.)
But Memba Sasa used up all the nonchalance there was. As we
entered camp he remarked casually to the nearest man.
"Bwana na piga simba-the master has killed a lion."
The man leaped to his feet.
"Simba! simba! simba!" he yelled. "Na piga simba!"
Every one in camp also leaped to his feet, taking up the cry.
>From the water it was echoed as the bathers scrambled ashore. The
camp broke into pandemonium. We were surrounded by a dense
struggling mass of men. They reached up scores of black hands to
grasp my own; they seized from me everything portable and bore it
in triumph before me-my water bottle, my rifle, my camera, my
whip, my field glasses, even my hat, everything that was
detachable. Those on the outside danced and lifted up their
voices in song, improvised for the most part, and in honor of the
day's work. In a vast swirling, laughing, shouting, triumphant
mob we swept through the camp to where Billy-by now not very
much surprised-was waiting to get the official news. By the
measure of this extravagant joy could we gauge what the killing
of a lion means to these people who have always lived under the
dread of his rule.
X. LIONS
A very large lion I killed stood three feet and nine inches at
the withers, and of course carried his head higher than that. The
top of the table at which I sit is only two feet three inches
from the floor. Coming through the door at my back that lion's
head would stand over a foot higher than halfway up. Look at your
own writing desk; your own door. Furthermore, he was nine feet
and eleven inches in a straight line from nose to end of tail, or
over eleven feet along the contour of the back. If he were to
rise on his hind feet to strike a man down, he would stand
somewhere between seven and eight feet tall, depending on how
nearly he straightened up. He weighed just under six hundred
pounds, or as much as four well-grown specimens of our own
"mountain lion." I tell you this that you may realize, as I did
not, the size to which a wild lion grows. Either menagerie
specimens are stunted in growth, or their position and
surroundings tend to belittle them, for certainly until a man
sees old Leo in the wilderness he has not understood what a fine
old chap he is.
This tremendous weight is sheer strength. A lion's carcass when
the skin is removed is a really beautiful sight. The great
muscles lie in ropes and bands; the forearm thicker than a man's
leg, the lithe barrel banded with brawn; the flanks overlaid by
the long thick muscles. And this power is instinct with the
nervous force of a highly organized being. The lion is quick and
intelligent and purposeful; so that he brings to his intenser
activities the concentration of vivid passion, whether of anger,
of hunger or of desire.
So far the opinions of varied experience will jog along together.
At this point they diverge.
Just as the lion is one of the most interesting and fascinating
of beasts, so concerning him one may hear the most diverse
opinions. This man will tell you that any lion is always
dangerous. Another will hold the king of beasts in the most utter
contempt as a coward and a skulker.
In the first place, generalization about any species of animal is
an exceedingly dangerous thing. I believe that, in the case of
the higher animals at least, the differences in individual
temperament are quite likely to be more numerous than the
specific likenesses. Just as individual men are bright or dull,
nervous or phlegmatic, cowardly or brave, so individual animals
vary in like respect. Our own hunters will recall from their
personal experiences how the big bear may have sat down and
bawled harmlessly for mercy, while the little unconsidered fellow
did his best until finished off: how one buck dropped instantly
to a wound that another would carry five miles: how of two
equally matched warriors of the herd one will give way in the
fight, while still uninjured, before his perhaps badly wounded
antagonist. The casualobserver might-and often does-say that
all bears are cowardly, all bucks are easily killed, or the
reverse, according as the god of chance has treated him to one
spectacle or the other. As well try to generalize on the human
race-as is a certain ecclesiastical habit-that all men are vile
or noble, dishonest or upright, wise or foolish.
The higher we go in the scale the truer this individualism holds.
We are forced to reason not from the bulk of observations, but
from their averages. If we find ten bucks who will go a mile
wounded to two who succumb in their tracks from similar hurts, we
are justified in saying tentatively that the species is tenacious
of life. But as experience broadens we may modify that statement;
for strange indeed are runs of luck.
For this reason a good deal of the wise conclusion we read in
sportsmen's narratives is worth very little. Few men have
experience enough with lions to rise to averages through the
possibilities of luck. ESPECIALLY is this true of lions. No beast
that roams seems to go more by luck than felis leo. Good hunters
may search for years without seeing hide nor hair of one of the
beasts. Selous, one of the greatest, went to East Africa for the
express purpose of getting some of the fine beasts there, hunted
six weeks and saw none. Holmes of the Escarpment has lived in the
country six years, has hunted a great deal and has yet to kill
his first. One of the railroad officials has for years gone up
and down the Uganda Railway on his handcar, his rifle ready in
hopes of the lion that never appeared; though many are there seen
by those with better fortune. Bronson hunted desperately for this
great prize, but failed. Rainsford shot no lions his first trip,
and ran into them only three years later. Read Abel Chapman's
description of his continued bad luck at even seeing the beasts.
MacMillan, after five years' unbroken good fortune, has in the
last two years failed to kill a lion, although he has made many
trips for the purpose. F. told me he followed every rumour of a
lion for two years before he got one. Again, one may hear the
most marvellous of yarns the other way about-of the German who
shot one from the train on the way up from Mombasa; of the young
English tenderfoot who, the first day out, came on three asleep,
across a river, and potted the lot; and so on. The point is, that
in the case of lions the element of sheer chance seems to begin
earlier and last longer than is the case with any other beast.
And, you must remember, experience must thrust through the luck
element to the solid ground of averages before it can have much
value in the way of generalization. Before he has reached that
solid ground, a man's opinions depend entirely on what kind of
lions he chances to meet, in what circumstances, and on how
matters happen to shape in the crowded moments.
But though lack of sufficientlyextended experience has much to
do with these decided differences of opinion, I believe that
misapprehension has also its part. The sportsman sees lions on
the plains. Likewise the lions see him, and promptly depart to
thick cover or rocky butte. He comes on them in the scrub; they
bound hastily out of sight. He may even meet them face to face,
but instead of attacking him, they turn to right and left and
make off in the long grass. When he follows them, they sneak
cunningly away. If, added to this, he has the good luck to kill
one or two stone dead at a single shot each, he begins to think
there is not much in lion shooting after all, and goes home
proclaiming the king of beasts a skulking coward.
After all, on what grounds does he base this conclusion? In what
way have circumstances been a test of courage at all? The lion
did not stand and fight, to be sure; but why should he? What was
there in it for lions? Behind any action must a motive exist.
Where is the possible motive for any lion to attack on sight? He
does not-except in unusual cases-eat men; nothing has occurred
to make him angry. The obvious thing is to avoid trouble, unless
there is a good reason to seek it. In that one evidences the
lion's good sense, but not his lack of courage. That quality has
not been called upon at all.
But if the sportsman had done one of two or three things, I am
quite sure he would have had a taste of our friend's mettle. If
he had shot at and even grazed the beast; if he had happened upon
him where an exit was not obvious; or IF HE HAD EVEN FOLLOWED THE
the small black-tipped ears laid back, the great fangs snarling.
The beast was not over twelve feet distant. F. immediately fired.
His shot, hitting an intervening twig, went wild. With the utmost
coolness he immediately pulled the other trigger of his double
barrel. The cartridge snapped.
"If you will kindly stoop down-" said I, in what I now remember
to be rather an exaggeratedly polite tone. As F.'s head
disappeared, I placed the little gold bead of my 405 Winchester
where I thought it would do the most good, and pulled trigger.
She rolled over dead.
The whole affair had begun and finished with unbelievable
swiftness. From the growl to the fatal shot I don't suppose four
seconds elapsed, for our various actions had followed one another
with the speed of the instinctive" target="_blank" title="a.本能的，天性的">instinctive. The lioness had growled at our
approach, had raised her head to charge, and had received her
deathblow before she had released her muscles in the spring.
There had been no time to get frightened.
We sat back for a second. A brown hand reached over my shoulder.
"Mizouri-mizouri sana!" cried Memba Sasa joyously. I shook the
hand.
"Good business!" said F. "Congratulate you on your first lion."
We then remembered B., and shouted to him that all was over. He
and the other men wriggled in to where we were lying. He made
this distance in about fifteen seconds. It had taken us nearly an
hour.
We had the lioness dragged out into the open. She was not an
especially large beast, as compared to most of the others I
killed later, but at that time she looked to me about as big as
they made them. As a matter of fact she was quite big enough, for
she stood three feet two inches at the shoulder-measure that
against the wall-and was seven feet and six inches in length. My
first bullet had hit her leg, and the last had reached her heart.
Every one shook me by the hand. The gunbearers squatted about
the carcass, skilfully removing the skin to an undertone of
curious crooning that every few moments broke out into one or two
bars of a chant. As the body was uncovered, the men crouched
about to cut off little pieces of fat. These they rubbed on their
foreheads and over their chests, to make them brave, they said,
and cunning, like the lion.
We remounted and took up our interrupted journey to camp. It was
a little after two, and the heat was at its worst. We rode rather
sleepily, for the reaction from the high tension of excitement
had set in. Behind us marched the three gunbearers, all abreast,
very military and proud. Then came the porters in single file,
the one carrying the folded lion skin leading the way; those
bearing the waterbuck trophy and meat bringing up the rear. They
kept up an undertone of humming in a minor key; occasionally
breaking into a short musicalphrase in full voice.
We rode an hour. The camp looked very cool and inviting under its
wide high trees, with the river slipping by around the islands of
papyrus. A number of black heads bobbed about in the shallows.
The small fires sent up little wisps of smoke. Around them our
boys sprawled, playing simple games, mending, talking, roasting
meat. Their tiny white tents gleamed pleasantly among the cool
shadows.
I had thought of riding nonchalantly up to our own tents, of
dismounting with a careless word of greeting-
"Oh, yes," I would say, "we did have a good enough day. Pretty
hot. Roy got a fine waterbuck. Yes, I got a lion." (Tableau on
part of Billy.)
But Memba Sasa used up all the nonchalance there was. As we
entered camp he remarked casually to the nearest man.
"Bwana na piga simba-the master has killed a lion."
The man leaped to his feet.
"Simba! simba! simba!" he yelled. "Na piga simba!"
Every one in camp also leaped to his feet, taking up the cry.
>From the water it was echoed as the bathers scrambled ashore. The
camp broke into pandemonium. We were surrounded by a dense
struggling mass of men. They reached up scores of black hands to
grasp my own; they seized from me everything portable and bore it
in triumph before me-my water bottle, my rifle, my camera, my
whip, my field glasses, even my hat, everything that was
detachable. Those on the outside danced and lifted up their
voices in song, improvised for the most part, and in honor of the
day's work. In a vast swirling, laughing, shouting, triumphant
mob we swept through the camp to where Billy-by now not very
much surprised-was waiting to get the official news. By the
measure of this extravagant joy could we gauge what the killing
of a lion means to these people who have always lived under the
dread of his rule.
X. LIONS
A very large lion I killed stood three feet and nine inches at
the withers, and of course carried his head higher than that. The
top of the table at which I sit is only two feet three inches
from the floor. Coming through the door at my back that lion's
head would stand over a foot higher than halfway up. Look at your
own writing desk; your own door. Furthermore, he was nine feet
and eleven inches in a straight line from nose to end of tail, or
over eleven feet along the contour of the back. If he were to
rise on his hind feet to strike a man down, he would stand
somewhere between seven and eight feet tall, depending on how
nearly he straightened up. He weighed just under six hundred
pounds, or as much as four well-grown specimens of our own
"mountain lion." I tell you this that you may realize, as I did
not, the size to which a wild lion grows. Either menagerie
specimens are stunted in growth, or their position and
surroundings tend to belittle them, for certainly until a man
sees old Leo in the wilderness he has not understood what a fine
old chap he is.
This tremendous weight is sheer strength. A lion's carcass when
the skin is removed is a really beautiful sight. The great
muscles lie in ropes and bands; the forearm thicker than a man's
leg, the lithe barrel banded with brawn; the flanks overlaid by
the long thick muscles. And this power is instinct with the
nervous force of a highly organized being. The lion is quick and
intelligent and purposeful; so that he brings to his intenser
activities the concentration of vivid passion, whether of anger,
of hunger or of desire.
So far the opinions of varied experience will jog along together.
At this point they diverge.
Just as the lion is one of the most interesting and fascinating
of beasts, so concerning him one may hear the most diverse
opinions. This man will tell you that any lion is always
dangerous. Another will hold the king of beasts in the most utter
contempt as a coward and a skulker.
In the first place, generalization about any species of animal is
an exceedingly dangerous thing. I believe that, in the case of
the higher animals at least, the differences in individual
temperament are quite likely to be more numerous than the
specific likenesses. Just as individual men are bright or dull,
nervous or phlegmatic, cowardly or brave, so individual animals
vary in like respect. Our own hunters will recall from their
personal experiences how the big bear may have sat down and
bawled harmlessly for mercy, while the little unconsidered fellow
did his best until finished off: how one buck dropped instantly
to a wound that another would carry five miles: how of two
equally matched warriors of the herd one will give way in the
fight, while still uninjured, before his perhaps badly wounded
antagonist. The casualobserver might-and often does-say that
all bears are cowardly, all bucks are easily killed, or the
reverse, according as the god of chance has treated him to one
spectacle or the other. As well try to generalize on the human
race-as is a certain ecclesiastical habit-that all men are vile
or noble, dishonest or upright, wise or foolish.
The higher we go in the scale the truer this individualism holds.
We are forced to reason not from the bulk of observations, but
from their averages. If we find ten bucks who will go a mile
wounded to two who succumb in their tracks from similar hurts, we
are justified in saying tentatively that the species is tenacious
of life. But as experience broadens we may modify that statement;
for strange indeed are runs of luck.
For this reason a good deal of the wise conclusion we read in
sportsmen's narratives is worth very little. Few men have
experience enough with lions to rise to averages through the
possibilities of luck. ESPECIALLY is this true of lions. No beast
that roams seems to go more by luck than felis leo. Good hunters
may search for years without seeing hide nor hair of one of the
beasts. Selous, one of the greatest, went to East Africa for the
express purpose of getting some of the fine beasts there, hunted
six weeks and saw none. Holmes of the Escarpment has lived in the
country six years, has hunted a great deal and has yet to kill
his first. One of the railroad officials has for years gone up
and down the Uganda Railway on his handcar, his rifle ready in
hopes of the lion that never appeared; though many are there seen
by those with better fortune. Bronson hunted desperately for this
great prize, but failed. Rainsford shot no lions his first trip,
and ran into them only three years later. Read Abel Chapman's
description of his continued bad luck at even seeing the beasts.
MacMillan, after five years' unbroken good fortune, has in the
last two years failed to kill a lion, although he has made many
trips for the purpose. F. told me he followed every rumour of a
lion for two years before he got one. Again, one may hear the
most marvellous of yarns the other way about-of the German who
shot one from the train on the way up from Mombasa; of the young
English tenderfoot who, the first day out, came on three asleep,
across a river, and potted the lot; and so on. The point is, that
in the case of lions the element of sheer chance seems to begin
earlier and last longer than is the case with any other beast.
And, you must remember, experience must thrust through the luck
element to the solid ground of averages before it can have much
value in the way of generalization. Before he has reached that
solid ground, a man's opinions depend entirely on what kind of
lions he chances to meet, in what circumstances, and on how
matters happen to shape in the crowded moments.
But though lack of sufficientlyextended experience has much to
do with these decided differences of opinion, I believe that
misapprehension has also its part. The sportsman sees lions on
the plains. Likewise the lions see him, and promptly depart to
thick cover or rocky butte. He comes on them in the scrub; they
bound hastily out of sight. He may even meet them face to face,
but instead of attacking him, they turn to right and left and
make off in the long grass. When he follows them, they sneak
cunningly away. If, added to this, he has the good luck to kill
one or two stone dead at a single shot each, he begins to think
there is not much in lion shooting after all, and goes home
proclaiming the king of beasts a skulking coward.
After all, on what grounds does he base this conclusion? In what
way have circumstances been a test of courage at all? The lion
did not stand and fight, to be sure; but why should he? What was
there in it for lions? Behind any action must a motive exist.
Where is the possible motive for any lion to attack on sight? He
does not-except in unusual cases-eat men; nothing has occurred
to make him angry. The obvious thing is to avoid trouble, unless
there is a good reason to seek it. In that one evidences the
lion's good sense, but not his lack of courage. That quality has
not been called upon at all.
But if the sportsman had done one of two or three things, I am
quite sure he would have had a taste of our friend's mettle. If
he had shot at and even grazed the beast; if he had happened upon
him where an exit was not obvious; or IF HE HAD EVEN FOLLOWED THE
- polite [pə´lait]
a.有礼貌的；温和的 (初中英语单词) - charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
- bullet [´bulit] n.子弹 (初中英语单词)
- cunning [´kʌniŋ] a.&n.狡猾(诡诈)的 (初中英语单词)
- reaction [ri´ækʃən] n.反应(力) (初中英语单词)
- musical [´mju:zikəl] a.音乐的；悦耳的 (初中英语单词)
- phrase [freiz] n.短语；词组；措词 (初中英语单词)
- careless [´keəlis] a.粗心的；草率的 (初中英语单词)
- ashore [ə´ʃɔ:] ad.向岸上 (初中英语单词)
- triumph [´traiəmf] n.胜利 vi.得胜，战胜 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- writing [´raitiŋ] n.书写；写作；书法 (初中英语单词)
- wilderness [´wildənis] n.荒地，荒野 (初中英语单词)
- tremendous [tri´mendəs] a.可怕的；巨大的 (初中英语单词)
- barrel [´bærəl] n.(琵琶)桶；圆筒 (初中英语单词)
- instinct [´instiŋkt] n.本能；直觉；天资 (初中英语单词)
- concentration [,kɔnsən´treiʃən] n.集中，专心 (初中英语单词)
- passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
- hunger [´hʌŋgə] n.饥饿；渴望 (初中英语单词)
- coward [´kauəd] n.胆怯者 a.胆小的 (初中英语单词)
- observer [əb´zə:və] n.遵守者；观察员 (初中英语单词)
- conclusion [kən´klu:ʒən] n.结束；结论；推论 (初中英语单词)
- thrust [θrʌst] v.&n.猛推；冲；刺；挤进 (初中英语单词)
- sufficiently [sə´fiʃəntli] ad.充分地，足够地 (初中英语单词)
- sportsman [´spɔ:tsmən] n.运动员；好运动的人 (初中英语单词)
- likewise [´laikwaiz] ad.同样地；也，又 (初中英语单词)
- promptly [´prɔmptli] ad.敏捷地；即时地 (初中英语单词)
- hastily [´heistili] ad.急速地；草率地 (初中英语单词)
- motive [´məutiv] n.动机；主题 a.运动的 (初中英语单词)
- unusual [ʌn´ju:ʒuəl] a.不平常的；异常的 (初中英语单词)
- obvious [´ɔbviəs] a.明显的；显而易见的 (初中英语单词)
- pleasantly [´plezntli] ad.令人愉快地；舒适地 (高中英语单词)
- extravagant [ik´strævəgənt] a.奢侈的；过度的 (高中英语单词)
- furthermore [,fə:ðə´mɔ:] ad.而且，此外 (高中英语单词)
- concerning [kən´sə:niŋ] prep.关于 (高中英语单词)
- species [´spi:ʃi:z] n.(生物的)种，类 (高中英语单词)
- exceedingly [ik´si:diŋli] ad.非常地，极度地 (高中英语单词)
- casual [´kæʒuəl] a.偶然的；临时的 (高中英语单词)
- upright [´ʌprait] a.直立的 ad.直立地 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
- desperately [´despəritli] ad.绝望地；拼命地 (高中英语单词)
- crowded [´kraudid] a.充(拥)满了的 (高中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- carcass [´kɑ:kəs] n.(动物的)尸体 (英语四级单词)
- tension [´tenʃən] n.紧张；压力；拉力 (英语四级单词)
- trophy [´trəufi] n.战利品；奖品 (英语四级单词)
- varied [´veərid] a.各种各样的 (英语四级单词)
- cowardly [´kauədli] a.&ad.胆小的(地) (英语四级单词)
- unbroken [ʌn´brəukən] a.未破的；不间断的 (英语四级单词)
- trigger [´trigə] n.扳机 vt.触发，启动 (英语六级单词)
- cartridge [´kɑ:tridʒ] n.弹药筒；子弹 (英语六级单词)
- instinctive [in´stiŋktiv] a.本能的，天性的 (英语六级单词)
- joyously [´dʒɔiəsli] ad.快乐地，高兴地 (英语六级单词)
- inviting [in´vaitiŋ] a.动人的 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- portable [´pɔ:təbəl] a.轻便的 n.手提打字机 (英语六级单词)
- contour [´kɔntuə] n.外形 vt.描...的轮廓 (英语六级单词)
- ecclesiastical [i,kli:zi´æstikəl] n.基督教会的；教士的 (英语六级单词)
- dishonest [dis´ɔnist] a.不诚实的 (英语六级单词)
- extended [iks´tendid] a.伸长的；广大的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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