We were greeted by the headman, a born politician who always wore eyeglasses and carried a fistful of ballpoint pens despite the fact he could see perfectly well without glasses and couldn't write a letter. I had tried hunting lion in this cover before, harrying them through the jungles of waxy, green, , a dense, house-high shrub that grows like a beach umbrella with the handle cut off, in hope of getting my clients a quick shot as the cats crossed the open channels between the heavier clumps. Shall I give you a radio sched at eight tonight to see if anything's new? Just maybe tonight Man-eating lions have had an almost unbelievable influence on the continent of Africa since the first European explorers and developers began to open up the bush in earnest. 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. It worked, since she backed up, but not without some violent muttering. All rights reserved. May be missing dust jacket. There was nothing between me and that lion but a fairly fragile mosquito net, so I felt it incumbent on me to take a dive out the opposite side of the cot. Death in the Long Grass Peter Hathaway Capstick Published by St. Martins, 1977 Seller: Green River Books, Gainesville, U.S.A. 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. With a loaded rifle and shotgun, I ventured into the now-lighted grass which had so nearly proved my undoing. Read online free Season Of The Long Grass ebook anywhere anytime. 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. 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. In one lightning movement it flattened the man, driving long fangs deep into his shoulder. My nerves were further jangled when the second client screamed, "Watch it! Willy awoke his son-in-law and sent him to start the small Honda generator while he went to the storeroom for the guns. beer. When I dropped him off at his village, near my safari camp, his fat, young wives seemed to concur as they bore him off to his hut with much giggling.The Sengas retrieved the body of the lion's last victim, which was about half-eaten. I loaded my .470 Evans double-express rifle with soft-points and stuck another clump of the big cartridges into various pockets of my bush clothes where they wouldn't rattle against each other. Unlucky bwanas and unfortunate natives get pounded with monotonous frequency by running inadvertently into females with small cubs, mating lions, feeding lions, and the like. We drifted slowly through the bush listening for the crunch ofbone or a low growl as the lion fed in the leafy stillness. Rooting man-eating lions out of thick cover is not my idea of good fun. I too am curious about what other africa hunting books to read. Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon, St. He wing-shot it, though a bit far back, and it rose into the air with a terrible roar, rearing like a hooked tarpon. The lioness' breath gagged him as she tried to get his face into her mouth, but, because the paw she was holding him with was in the way, she failed. 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. "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. I was almost positive that I was going to have to shoot our way out of there, but, fortunately, they let us back off.Baiting for lion is widely misunderstood. I heard and felt the metal hit bone and stop. Silent finished the story sucking at the gashes on the heel of his hand that the cap of the bottle had cut. Catch-22, Afro style. Hardcover. After all, fried chicken anyone? Beautiful stories and vivid descriptions. Unfortunately, her heroism was for naught since the man died shortly from his wounds. The man was still staring in horror, mumbling gibberish. His book on the episode is a classic of hunting literature and, due to its immense popularity, is still often available in used bookstores. What does kick into the long grass expression mean? Death in the Long Grass: A Big Game Hunter's Adventures in the African Bush by 1 watched in the last 24 hours 41 product ratings Condition: Good Price: US $8.32 Buy It Now Add to cart Add to Watchlist Returns accepted Ships from United States All net proceeds go to charity US $3.99 Economy Shipping. In addition to writing about hunting, he was also featured in an award-winning safari video and audio tapes. The killing of a lion seems to excite Africans more than any other species, and this was no exception. 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. I was too scared to either climb or shout, but got some false courage by possession of my rifle and my over/under with pockets full of ammunition for both. 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). Status symbols are as important in the African, as they are on Park Avenue. 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. I wonder how many more there were who were simply reported as "missing" or, considering the primitive conditions of the more remote tribes, never reported at all.Certainly, there are any number of cases of men being killed but not eaten by lions. I had hunted man-eating cats twice before this experience: the Okavango man-eater, a famous killer-leopard, and a lioness who had developed a sweet-tooth for Ethiopians. They have not been heard from. 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. Her impact hurls the man from his bed and onto the ground. Still conscious, Len screamed for his wife to get out of the hut and run. In a few hours Joe Joubert, a professional hunter employed by Hankin's safari firm, a Zambian game guard, and Joubert's safari client, Samuel Lenher of Wilmington, Delaware, are driving hard along the bush road from Joubert's camp at Zokwe to the scene of the tragedy. Captstick settled in Pretoria, South Africa with his wife Fiona until his death at age 56. Free shipping for many products! 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. Wide open. Death in the Long Grass: A Big Game Hunter's Adventures in the African Bush PDF EBOOK DOWNLOAD Description Peter Hathaway Capstick's 'Death in the Long Grass' continues to be one of the true classics of written hunting tales. Crawling into the nightmare tangles of thorn on your hands and knees after a big male lion may have very different consequences from kicking a cottontail rabbit out of a Connecticut brush pile, although in each case the sport is called hunting.But for his skin as a personal trophy, the lion is hunted entirely as a personal challenge. He rolled over, face-up on the dirt, listening to the lion chewing on the young man. Everybody else was ensconced aloft somewhere except my partners, Steiner and Sherwin, Americans from Chicago. "Also," he said, shuffling the dirt with a big toe, "they were a little bit drunk." Death In The Long Grass. ""Yes, Dad, I'm all right," answered a pain-tight voice. 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. How many Detroit schoolteachers do you think the tour mongers in Kenya's national parks would have signed up last year if word had gotten out about the photographer who was pulled out of his tent by the head and eaten down to his toenails by a solitary. A sheet of blood burst into his eyes as he threw himself backward, gasping in pain.Most men who had just had their foreheads ripped open by a man-eating lioness would not be anxious for an encore performance. His wit, metaphors, descriptions all resonate--British. Bending down, I defined the clear pugmark of a big, male lion. 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. Grabbed a young man sleeping off a beer bust with two others, but neither of his pals awoke. and 800 lions from my chariot." At any rate, lions certainly have a creditable record for killing the famous. 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. We are after them. In this kind of business you learn to remember close calls only for what they taught you, not for how they might have turned out. 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. View flipping ebook version of (PDF BOOK) Death in the Long Grass: A Big Game Hunter's Adventures in the African Bush full published by chanler.romar on 2021-06-11. Pinching a bottle of cold beer from the condensation bag, I went back to my hut and lashed the door shut with a long piece of buffalo hide thong.Anybody who is not at least slightly terrified by theprospect of a man-eating lion dropping by for a late snack is, in my opinion, suffering from soft spots in the head. He had 222 stitches in his head alone and immense skin and bone grafting work on both head and hands. Coming up, he shouted and yelled at the lion to draw its attention and blew the cat's head into pudding with his own .458. I can only hope he was her first victim. Whichever, it probably saved his life. These incredibly brazen killers finally had their hash settled by a pith-helmeted paladin working for the railway, a Lieutenant Colonel J. H. Patterson, DSO, but only after a period of several months of frustrating hunting, during which time the colonel very nearly got the chop himself on several occasions. Excerpt. I didn't, of course. I'll leave in an hour. Colin could have easily shot the man-eater, but he did not. After ten yards of retreat, he pantomimed that a woman's hand was lying just off the trail and that he could smell the lion. Few men can say they have known Africa as Capstick has known itleading safaris through lion country; tracking man-eating leopards along tangled . One of them, older and more weather worn, is pitched fifty yards from the others. It looks like WhatsApp is not installed on your phone. At Shapi was another semivacationing ranger and his family, an experienced man named Willy De Beer, his wife, daughter, and her husband, a student from Salisbury called Colin Matthews. Some professionals show their assorted scars with pride, but I don't feel that way. 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. And of the few who have known this dangerous way of life, fewer still can recount their adventures with the flair of this former professional hunter-turned-writer.Based on Capsticks own experiences and the personal accounts of his colleagues, Death in the Long Grass portrays the great killers of the African bushnot only the lion, leopard, and elephant, but the primitive rhino and the crocodile waiting for its unsuspecting prey, the titanic hippo and the Cape buffalo charging like an express train out of control. 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. To treat your dead grass, run a lawn tiller over the grass and water it every day for a week to help it . 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. Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. Just as my eyes closed, the night was slashed by a shriek that would curdle Bearnaise sauce. My heart slammed in my ears like Gene Krupa on speed as adrenalin pumped through my system. Except for the arm and some claw marks on his chest, he seemed to be unhurt. A lion can cover forty-five feet quicker than you can pronounce it. . To add the following enhancements to your purchase, choose a different seller. Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club thats right for you for free. once roamed throughout Europe, North America, Asia, and, of course, the whole of Africa. As he smashed into me, seemingly in slow motion, the right barrel fired, perhaps from a conscious trigger pull, perhaps from impact, I'll never know. Lions were everywhere. ""No one had been bitten. I have seen the, in the British Museum, dating from approximately 1400 B.C. The cat gave a horrible roar and released Silent as I wrenched the spear free, the long point bright with blood. This time the lioness was ready and waiting for him. 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. My heart hit the top of my skull as she growled and dashed almost past me to disappear into the grass. Waves of agony made him gag and wobble, but he pushed the rifle barrel through the window again. They were dimly-lit in the semi-darkness of the camp. Locking the safety catches, he handed the .243 to Colin Matthews as he came up. No blood. The fact that a man-eating feline is the most difficult animal in the world to hunt can be explained by the cat's ability to learn well and quickly. 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. 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. I had learned in Asia that the best weapon against a thin-skinned animal at close range was a 12-gauge shotgun with magnum loads of buckshot. ${cardName} not available for the seller you chose. The tracks showed definitely that we were on the trail of the right lion.The spoor led through thinning, winter-dry bush studded with thorn, scrub, , and towering ant hills for a couple of miles, then turned off to the dense riverine vegetation that bordered the shallow Munyamadzi for about 500 yards of depth along each bank. Louis Tipungwuti is a Tiwi Islands man. you have a budding, new man-eater. Death in the Long Grass 1LionIt is nearly three o'clock in the sweltering morning of September 2, 1974.In four hot, still hours dawn will hemorrhage like a fresh wound in the sky over the eastern Muchingas, the great, towering walls that confine the upper reaches of the Luangwa River in Zambia's Eastern Province. It grunted at the blows and pulled its head back partially, then with a furious roar stuck it back into the hut.