Belgian Fairy Tales
Copyright© 2024 by William Elliot Griffis
Chapter 22: The Split Tailed Lion
The two hunters went to Antwerp and embarked on one of the large ships, such as the crusaders made use of, to get to Jerusalem.
Reaching the mouth of the Nile, they tarried awhile in Cairo and in Khartoum, and then pushed into the interior. They engaged a company of native blacks, to carry their baggage, beat the bush, drive out the lions, and carry the beast, when caught, in a cage; to the return ships. The whole party, strung out in a line, marched into a famous wide valley, where were also veldts, or open spaces. They camped to the windward of a big water hole, to which the lions resorted, for drink and their prey. There, they made a strong “hide-up,” or enclosure, of tall reeds, bushes, and boughs of trees, all interlaced together. This was for them to hide behind. Here they opened the lids of their paintpots, and got ready their brushes to daub themselves all over, with seventeen different tints and hues, in streaks, spots, dabs, lines and figures.
The next day, the negroes brought in a report that, besides several small lions, that were in the bush, there was one big fellow, the king of them all. He was a famous man-eater, and had tasted many a black daddy and mammy, besides not a few pickaninnies. So it is no wonder that the African people, in telling the hunters about this beast, made him out to be so enormous, that it was thought a whole ox could hardly furnish him with one dinner; but this was just the sort about which they wanted to hear, for they were not afraid. They had been practicing camouflage, while on the ship and were now experts. The way they could sling paint on a man’s body, and dress him up in damaged rainbows, made them feel sure they could upset all the lion’s calculations. In fact, they believed they could raise a brain storm, in any beast that tried to look at them, no matter how large, or cunning he might be.
First they had the negroes dig a deep pit, and cover it over with poles, branches, leaves and earth. They caught a fat pig, and in spite of its squeals, they tied it to a stake, in front of the pit, out on the flat ground.
Then, stripping off their clothes, the two men went to the paintpots. They striped each other in wide bands, of several colors, painted round blotches, and curves, back and front, and so daubed, and streaked, and spotted their faces, arms, legs, back and front, that one look might make a man or beast, first cross-eyed, and then blind, and finally stupefied. Even the scabbards of their long knives, their only arms—for they would take no risks—when painted in streaks, looked like a lot of crooked rainbows.
When the signal was given to the black men, to go around and shout, and beat the bush, Piggy began to squeal and ramp around, as if he knew he would soon be inside the lion. At once the big brute seeing the pig, and hoping to get a good meal, advanced toward what he supposed was to be his dinner.
Now this king of the lions had often seen human beings, but these were always of a dark color, with tints, ranging from chocolate brown to ebony black. He had eaten men and children for breakfast, dinner and supper, with an occasional extra lunch in the form of a baby. The lion’s idea was, that all human beings were black, for he had never traveled to Europe, with a circus company, or to Rome to fight and claw gladiators. So, when driven out by the shouting of the bush-beaters, the big beast plunged out into the veldt, and charged toward the pork. He was the father of lions, in size, with a face as big as a wash tub, and on which there was enough long hair to stuff a mattress with.
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