Five times he worked the bolt of his .338 custom Mauser, but the lion did not fall. Many times the animal tried to break in, and finally the woman's nerve broke. He stopped. Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2022. We both knew that man-eating lions didn't usually get sorted out in a day or so. Hook-and-bullet adventures had by tough guys such as Teddy Roosevelt and Papa Hemingway may be out of favor in these times of eco-awareness, but Peter Hathaway Capstick's account of big-game hunting in Africa remains a classic. His head was already past the muzzles, too close to shoot, looking like a hairy pickle barrel full of teeth. Finally, we stopped and, checking the wind, swung in a wide arc to bring us as close as possible to the shrub yet offer us maximum visibility under the difficult circumstances.Finally, we came up to the thorn bush and, the three armed men leading the trackers and gunbearers, sneaked up on it. It was so dark that he could hardly see, but he heard the short Chuff! That said, you do not need to be a hunter to appreciate this book. The man fell backward onto the ground, and the lioness immediately launched herself through the window after him, landing on his prostrate body.Although barely conscious, Willy De Beer had the presence of mind to try to cover his mutilated head with his hands, a feat he accomplished just as the man-eater grabbed his head in her jaws and started to drag him away. I'd suggest your read his other books too. The banks of the river in this area are perhaps forty to fifty feet high, and below them is one of the niftiest collections of large crocodiles and hippos you would ever want to see. Few men can say they have known Africa as Peter Hathaway Capstick has known it -- leading safaris through lion country; tracking man-eating leopards along tangled jungle paths; running for cover as fear-maddened elephants stampede in all directions. They are also, I can promise you, the most consistently nasty. She rolled under the bed and, hysterical with agony and fear, emerged fromthe far side of the hut near the door. The soft breeze brought me the same unmistakable odor of a house cat on a humid day. It is nearly three o'clock in the sweltering morning of September 2, 1974. At the time I was given this report by the father, who stayed several days with us in Rhodesia this past season, the complete extent of the boy's injuries was yet unknown, although some brain damage was suspected. In a flash of dark motion she is in the air, claws extended like naked linoleum knives, the light mosquito netting shredding before her charge. Author: Peter Hathaway Capstick Publisher: St. Martin's Press ISBN: 1466803924 Category : Sports & Recreation Languages : en Pages : 320 Download Book. Willy awoke his son-in-law and sent him to start the small Honda generator while he went to the storeroom for the guns. His wit, metaphors, descriptions all resonate--British. All rights reserved. We went through the usual amenities, the Thin-Red-Line-of-Empiahvoice hollow over the speaker. This is not a book for the squeamish but it remains essential reading for anyone planning to visit Africa with a camera or a rifle. Rooting man-eating lions out of thick cover is not my idea of good fun. As if in a dream, he shoved his right arm as far as it would go into the enraged animal's mouth, the wood-rasp tongue tight in his fist. Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations. It seemed stuck. The millet and sorghum beer the tribes brew and drink keeps fermenting in their stomachs until the celebrants pass into a comatose sleep wherever they happen to lie down. I had bearded that lion in deep grass at night with an empty gun! I sneaked my eyes open but saw nothing in the pale moonlight filtering through the tall acacias. In addition to writing about hunting, he was also featured in an award-winning safari video and audio tapes. This book give us some . I couldn't share his enthusiasm. As most men who have written about the hunting of man-eaters have confirmed, the majority of really high-scoring lions have been hunted badly by an amateur or clumsy professional before. 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. The heat of the African night pressed heavily against him, and, as he paused, the hush of quiet breathing came to his pricked-up ears. He triggered the first shot, then, as fast as his smashed hands could work the bolt action, fired twice more. Hans Besser, a German hunter early in this century, told of a missionary of the White Fathers in Tanganyika being carried off and taking fifteen minutes to die while the lion ate him. The movie "Ghost and the Darkness" is one of my very favorite of all. Sometimes, however, the victim is grasped by the body and dragged off to be eaten alive. Capstick. 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. Matthews was still struggling to remove the bucket from his foot when the lioness slammed into him. Despite my own shock, I can still close my eyes and see, as if in Super Vistavision, Silent trying to shove his hand into the lion's mouth to buy time for me to recover the rifle and kill him. While hunting is the vessel through which this story is told, it is more about the animals, how they act, fight and survive in Africa that is the real star. For amoment she hesitates, but her ancestral fear of the smell is washed over by the desperation of her hunger. I felt that just as the day before, the lion would travel a few miles, then stop to feed, although after the meal he had taken the previous day, he couldn't have been terribly hungry. Colin could have easily shot the man-eater, but he did not. Death in the long grass by Capstick, Peter Hathaway. I almost meant it, too. Four wrist-thick sticks of the biltong washed down with a cool Castle Pilsner from the condensation bag on the Land Rover's bonnet completed my dinner. Operating in a photographic safari area, professional hunter Peter Hankin has had to leave it at his hunting camp, Chitangulu, forty miles downstream. In East Africa there are several cases recorded of a lion eating his victim within the sight of paralyzed onlookers.I still get the old flutter-guts when I recall the night in Ngamiland, Botswana, in 1970 when I was sharing a tent with Daryll Dandridge, a fellow professional hunter at the time with Ker, Downey, and Selby Safaris, Ltd. Our campwas pitched hard on the edges of the Okavango Swamp, and, the night being warm, we had not zipped the ends of the tent closed. Capstick also served in that most perilous of tradesElephant and Buffalo Cropping Officer. Great writing style. A book I have read and re-read, Capstick being a master story-teller whether recounting personal incidents, or simply relaying some of the tales that abound of hunting dangerous game in Central Africa. Few of us can now have the privilege of hunting wild elephants or buffalo but we can at least re-live the hunts of the past through Capstick's work. In the light of the small plant he grabbed a Model 70 Winchester in .375 H&H caliber, and a Parker-Hale .243, both bolt-action rifles, along with a handful of cartridges for each. I grabbedthe rifle and electric torch, pulled the thorn fence away, and dashed barefoot toward the screams. has been so widely quoted in works about lions and man-eaters as to make a furtherretelling merely lily gilding, save to mention that, a bit after Patterson killed the Tsavo pride, a single man-eater of considerable talent took residence further up the line displaying, to quote Colonel Patterson, "an extraordinary taste for the members of the railway staff," culminating in the catching, killing, and eating of the superintendent of police, a Mr. Ryall. 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. Yet, the lions paid them no appreciable interest. Lions may or may not eat people killed under these circumstances, but if they do, they don't seem to forget how easily the meal was obtained and. If they have less apprehension about the scent of man through familiarity, I feel they are more likely to attack. Aware, from related incidents, of the Zambian Game Department's policy on the killing of unlicensed game, I knew that the department would conclude that since the lion had not actually eaten me, there was no proof that it was a man-eater, and I was therefore guilty of lion poaching. I don't really remember when I began being interested in big game hunters and the "big five". A low, incredibly sinister rumble welled up through the dark, and the hut shook under a heavy shock. Hippo is is at the top of the list for herbivores, and crocodiles lead the category of man-killers in the carnivore section, yet neither are true sporting animals in the classic sense. No lions. Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2022. Yet. But he did not see the paw stroke that tore through the skin of his forehead and grated on his skull bone. I couldn't say for sure, but in my experience a Botswana lion is as likely to charge on sight at close quarters as not.Because of the loose, sandy texture of the soil, tracking is quite easy in this area. There followed a scratching, thrashing sound and a thump like a meal sack dropped down an empty elevator shaft. I fished out my flask of Scotch and poured a hair-raising shot into the little, scratched plastic cup while Silent recruited men to cut thorn for a, , a spiky barrier or fence to keep out nocturnal unpleasantries. A pulsing fountain burst from the wound in a tall throbbing geyser as I thrust it back again, working it with all the strength of my arms. And, remember, those are just the ones we know of.The scores of other man-eaters in central and south-east Africa, such as the Mpika lions, the Revugwi man-eaters,the Chabunkwa lion that I killed, and literally dozens of others, less famous because of remoteness, have killed without question many tens of thousands of people in this century alone. I didn't miss the second time as he dragged himself toward me with his front paws.Lion charges are usually, but not always, preceded by a short grunt, which is a great aid in locating the cat. A Spanish client, Armando Bassi of Barcelona, a fine hunter, had wounded a good-maned lion, but it had escapedinto the thick, before Paul could get in a finishing shot. "Right, Cyril," I answered. classic big game animal. A single hyena had crossed the blood spoor and followed the lion, but a threatening rumble from the man-eater kept the other animal shuffling twenty feet away.The big cat rolled the body over and, holding it down with his forepaws, began to feed. 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. And not all the tales had happy endings in an often kill or be killed A book I have read and re-read, Capstick being a master story-teller whether recounting personal incidents, or simply relaying some of the tales that abound of hunting dangerous game in Central Africa. kick into the long grass phrase. I started reading it last night, and couldn't put it down. while her husband sat nearby chanting, playing a small drum. for catching humans. (ABC Radio Darwin: Jesse Thompson) In September, an Indigenous man in Darwin was handed a fine for . The cat gave a horrible roar and released Silent as I wrenched the spear free, the long point bright with blood. 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). Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout. Many animals that I had to previous impressions of, were described much differently than I wouldve expected. Since the sun was already down, they ran as fast as they could toward the sound and actually caught up with a big lion within shooting distance. Over. I lit a cigarette from the flat thirty-pack of Matinees. Silent entered with my flask, and we were able to get a gagging shot down his throat. The first shot fired by De Beer had caught her in the lungs, the second in the shoulder, and the third, traveling at a muzzle velocity of 3,000 feet per second, pierced the cat's right cheek, completely smashed Colin's hand and knuckles, which were inside the lioness' mouth, and then passed harmlessly through the left cheek. Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. The walls seemed intact, as was the roof. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. 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. It was still breathing. This is one of the first world tar has made more want to travel to Africa myself! In the vicinity of Fort Mangoche there was an isolated hut some hundred yards from the main village. This reflex seems better developed in humans than in most big game, who have few if any natural enemies. Still inside. Not overly comfortable, to be sure, but those two barrels contained better than 10,000 foot-pounds of wallop, which gives a man considerable peace of mind. There was a problem loading your book clubs. (1940-1996), a former Wall Street stockbroker turned professional adventurer, was critically acclaimed as the successor to Hemingway and Ruark in African hunting literature. We might be able to stalk him while he was actually eating his kill or intercept him on his way to water before he went to lie up for the hot hours. Over. There is no form of lion hunting that is not exciting, but this is one of the methods most likely to continue fluttering your stomach twenty years after you first tried it. She came forward one. I slowed further and he explained in Fanagalo that he had seen the flicker of an ear beneath a small thorn shrub in the grass but wasn't certain if it belonged to a lion or a hyena. Snatching up a new flaming brand, she opened the door and ran for the village, right past the lion, who let her go. May not include supplemental materials. No spoor, no roaring, no kills. "He reckoned that would be a fine idea. ofcentral Africa, where eyebell-to-eyeball confrontations are as common as not. It dawned on him that the lioness must be standing on the stock. In researching this book among many hundreds of previous works that date as far back as the first decade of the eighteenth century, I have noticed one conclusion as to the cause of man-eating that seems to recur. We looked at them and they looked at us. In the excitement he was, he was actually shooting at the lion, and to this day I suspect he wonders if I pulled some sort of practical joke.Another hunter friend of mine reports that, upon seeing his first lion at close range, his client threw away his rifle and ran like a lunatic straight after the big cat. After leaving Wall Street, the New Jersey native hunted in Central and South America before going to Africa, where he held pro hunting licenses in Ethiopia, Zambia, Botswana, and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). A lion with a bullet in his guts will do everything he can to repay the favor by lying in wait until the last moment before he charges.The second factor contributing to a lion's dangerousness is the combination of his speed and strength and the small target he offers in a frontal charge. Readers can lean back in a chair, sip a tall, iced drink, and revel in the kinds of hunting stories Hemingway and Ruark used to hear in hotel bars from Nairobi to Johannesburg, as veteran hunters would tell of what they heard beyond the campfire and saw through the sights of an express rifle. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. They did not go away, though; they just stayed out in the high grass adjacent the camp and growled. With humor, grace, and supreme tension, Capstick takes the reader . The lion lay under a bush, after doubling back on his track in a short loop, and watched Paul track past. ""Stand by, please," I answered. The temperature spikes up to 90 degrees F or more, it might end up affecting the grass eventually causing it to die. We have dispatched from our book depository; items of good condition to over ten million satisfied customers worldwide. Charging lions have been known to cover a hundred yards in just over three seconds. Wide open fields of grain hold our quarry and it's here that part 2 of our story. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2011-08-30 17:14:45 Bookplateleaf 0008 Boxid IA142818 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City New York Donor allen_countydonation Death in the Long Grass Peter Hathaway Capstick Published by St. Martins, 1977 Seller: Green River Books, Gainesville, U.S.A. Silent started off on the now-cold trail carrying the water bag, a pouch of biltong (wind- and shade-dried meat), and his long spear.The afternoon sun seared our shoulders as we followed the spoor into the bush and finally found the spot in the, where the lion had settled down for his meal.The prints of the hyena were over those of the cat, and the most we could recover was a tooth-scarred chunk of lower jawbone and some splinters of unidentifiable bone. ""Yes, Dad, I'm all right," answered a pain-tight voice. Death in the Long Grass: A Big Game Hunter's Adventures in the African Bush Hardcover - 15 January 1978 by Peter Hathaway Capstick (Author) 1,117 ratings See all formats and editions Kindle $20.89 Read with Our Free App Hardcover $57.74 1 Used from $35.29 9 New from $44.92 Mass Market Paperback $642.00 2 Used from $204.00 1 New from $642.00 I stiffened against the feel of long fangs that would be along presently, burying themselves in my shoulder or neck, and thought about how nice and quick it would probably be. Discretion being the better part of lion hunting, it was we who cleared off, returning a few hours later for the old boy's skin. Just as my eyes closed, the night was slashed by a shriek that would curdle Bearnaise sauce. In heavy bush country men sometimes stumble onto lions that have no sense of humor. "It is good. Nielssen later told me he heard a slight sound behind him, but as he spun to fire, the lion was on him and knocked him flat.The infuriated cat grabbed Paul by the shoulder and sank his fangs through meat and bone, while shaking the puny human like a jackal with a mouse. 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. Even if fiction is worth a read. 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. But the rifle, as bush-scarred as the face of its owner, is not leaning in its usual place beside the bed. The hackles were crawling around on my neck like a nest of maggots, and my palms were slippery cold on the Circassian walnut stock of the rifle. A classic example took place at the close of the last century when no less a power than the empire of Queen Victoria was thwarted in its imperial designs by eight man-eaters who halted construction of the so called Lunatic Express, the Uganda Railroad, as it passed through south-east Kenya. I didn't hit one as far as I know, but the shots scared them out of camp. I have never decided in my own mind which animal, the elephant or lion, has killed more people. The Tribal Council is screaming for action. Self publishing . My back flat to the wall, I swung the torch in a slow, wide arc, the dark, grape-jelly gleam of blood spoor reflecting in the lightbeam. I am, however, a believer in the sooner-or-later theory, sort of an offshoot of Murphy's Law, which, paraphrased, states that if you stick your neck out with the stuff that bites back enough times, you're going to get it sooner or later. The lion ducked into a thicket, raising vocal murder.The professional, muttering unprintables, bulled in after it to save his reputation for never letting a client with a lion license go home empty-handed. To be on the safe side, I would sleep in the open car with the big rifleagainst my leg. Now I observe predatory animals doing what nature intended for them to do. Arterial. One pussycat that wasn't going far. Good God, we hadn't unpacked them! The singlemindedness of a man-eater was amply demonstrated by C. A. W. Guggisberg in his definitive work on lions, . If you're remotely interested in wildlife, Africa or adventure, you simply MUST read this book. He rolled over, face-up on the dirt, listening to the lion chewing on the young man. 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. Peter Hathaway Capstick (1940-1996), a former Wall Street stockbroker turned professional adventurer, was critically acclaimed as the successor to Hemingway and Ruark in African hunting literature. I sent Amos back for the Rover and my driver, Elias, who pulled up on the road shortly.Although this particular car was open, a raised plank on a pipe framework over the pickup bed had been built for photography and better visibility in heavy cover. Silent, my gunbearer, heard my call and stepped out of the hut with his brother, Invisible. Peter Hathaway. Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2016. Unfortunately, her heroism was for naught since the man died shortly from his wounds. I felt the first lukewarm slug burn the dust from between my teeth and form a small, liquid bonfire in the pit of my stomach. Her stomach contained a small snake, a wad of chicken feathers, and most of Len Harvey's face. He must have already cleared it through my company or he wouldn't have known I was free. To nearly all of us, the concept of being eaten, , is so remote as to be unthinkable. In times of stress their movements are virtually nothing but blurs, a very unnerving fact at a time when you yourself are probably scared witless. Finally, he calmed down enough to tell us what had happened.He had awakened when his wife stirred to a call of nature. This is easily the best of Capstick's books and the one that I can't resist going back to. Because of the great personal danger inherent in sport hunting for lions under modern conditions, it might be said that hunting lion on foot in the thick covers of central Africa is the purest expression of the honest sport of hunting. He edged up to the window, a small, black orifice in the mud wall. Hard cover, pages and spline in otherwise excellent condition. The luck of the draw.Willy De Beer, surprisingly, survived his wounds. Covered with gore from her wounds, she fled the black hut but, halfway to the De Beer house, she stopped, giving a desperate thought to helping her husband. 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. As thrilling as any novel, as taut and exciting as any adventure story, Peter Hathaway Capstick's Death in the Long Grass takes us deep into the heart of darkness to view Africa through the eyes. Before long, these mutterings rose to a crescendo of gabble in a strange language which left me totally uninformed as to what was going on. Marie, Marcel (Marcel Brochard, owner of the Studio de Bologne, a major Paris movie studio and Cox's nonhunting companion), one of our trackers and I were the only ones left on terra firma. One of them, older and more weather worn, is pitched fifty yards from the others. Jaguar, yes. Learn more Seller information better_world_books_uk (399231) 99.2% positive Feedback Save seller
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