SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 55

Report by Richard Usborne Tornkins, the hunter, a fairly veracious man, said, " I once shot a lion with a bandaged paw in the African jungle." A prize of £5 was offered for explaining, in his own words, how this happened.

1 didn't invent the shooting-a-lion-with-a-bandaged-paw idea. One evening in May, 1941, in the bar of the King David Hotel, Jerusalem, I hear.I, over my shoulder, one of a group of four British officers say: " Have you ever shot a lion with a bandaged paw ? " I noted it in my diary, whence it rose to tease me again the other day. I wasn't sure which of the four uniformed types at the King David was the speaker. They were all in a fairly solemn, no-fooling mood. And the word was certainly " lion," not " line." I rather hoped that one of the four would go in for this competition. and send me the true story, to win.

But no. Nobody's explanation has convinced me. A good deal of ingenuity, but nothing with the ring of conviction such as you get, for example, in Jim Corbett's wonderful lion and leopard stories. If I had been going in for this competition myself I would, I think, have re-read Corbett for atmosphere. But 1 still don't know what the story would have been.

Androcles turned up in several entries, of course.

"The bandaged paw ? Oh, I got the beast from a British -Council troupe. Damned silly, 1 call it, playing Shaw in Nigeria ! " (D. L L. Clarke.) Mrs. Ormerod's last line " I also found a snake with a diamond necklace round its throat, but that's another story. . . ."

was pleasant.

A publicity stunt (? to impress vets) organised by the great Zigski for the great Zugstein's Patent Waterproof Bandage Dress- ing was Pauline Willis's guess. " Shot " equals " photographed" was a possibility tried by several.

Three entrants gave the bandaged paw (hand) to Tomkins, as " What's that ? Where does the bandaged paw come in ? Who d'you think I am ... Andromeda or something ? 1 was the one with the bandaged paw, old man. Cut it with a tin- opener the day before. Ha ! ha ! I had you there ! " (E. D. Grierson.) R. C. Brookfield had Tomkins, for want of a better weapon, wrap half a paw-paw (carica papaya) in a puttee, and sling it with the other puttee . . . oh, well, it didn't sound likely.

The fantastic were frequent. E. P. Stanham's ending was " Funny thins was 1 bagged a unicorn next day whose hooves were bandaged in just the same way."

And C. J. Richards's " We buried the lion's body the same evening with full ceremonial honours to the music of a tribal band, or neshindi, as the natives of that part of Tanganyika call it.

Curiously enough, not long afterwards I shot a large and rather inebriated baboon wearing an Old Haileyburian tie."

Well, verisimilitude being out, 1 award the prizes in a fancy- flee mood ; the first of f2 to an anonymous competitor (name and address please), and three seconds of £1 to Leonard L. Hicks, K. J. 11 ebb and Mrs. W. M. Mathieson (for whose entry there is, unfor- tunately, no room).

PRIZES (ANON) " Years later I learnt the story. I met a bearer who had been in the service of a Nubian King. He told me that his late master had not been content to sit upon a throne flanked by the figures of lions. They had to be real ones.

"So tamers had been sought, and after months of hard work, two lions had actually been induced to take up their positions. And right noble had they looked, so that the King's subjects had looked upon him as indeed the chosen of the gods to have thus demonstrated his power over lions as well as men. But for the lions it had been a different story. They had been humiliated and put on show.

They had borne it for several weeks, and then one day a mouse had clock-worked across the floor, and bitten one of the lions on the Paw. This had been the final indignity. With a roar the mighty animal had risen and fled from the throne-room.

" Later the bearer had found him sobbing in his den, with blood pouring from the bitten paw. He had bandaged it as well as he could. But it had been no good. That lion could stand no more. He had left the palace that very night, and had never been seen again " My amazement at this story was great, but not so great as the bearer's when 1 took him aside and presented him with a skin I had always kept by me. It was the skin of the lion with the bandaged paw."

(LEONARD L. HICKS) " You ought to know how to fasten a safety-pin properly. Mrs. Codd did not ; it cost her Tiddles.

"She was a lion-tamer ; La Belle Souris professionally. Gave up when the war started and went to Africa, lions and all. Going home she called it, but she really came from Wombell.

" She settled down on the edge of the jungle. The natives weren't pleased ; they thought lions, even caged lions, were dangerous. Still thought so when Mrs. Codd let Tiddles sit on her. (The other the wouldn't perform—disliked the heat and sensed local audiences were unappreciative. Animals KNOW!) " One day Tiddles got loose. The natives tieing fearful litter-fiends, poor Tiddles cut his paw on a broken Coco-Cola bottle and went limp- ing back to Mrs. Codd. He stuck the dowsings of iodine gamely— knowing they were for his good—but when, fastening the bandage. Mrs. Codd pricked him severely with a safety-pin, Tiddles shuffled off with painful roars. . ." (K. J. WEBB)

Tomkins said: "It's perfectly simple. Brown, the M.O., mentioned it the other night over a sundowner. I'd recognised his bandaging, naturally-

" It seems the chief in those parts has had a row with his witch- doctor and now patronises the rival firm—Brown. He lets his invalids accumulate a bit, then lines 'em up, sends for Brown for a spot of mass- medicine. Brown obliges—even treats the animals, to spread the benefits of civilisation.

" Well, the week before my hunt, he went through the usual routine— men, animals and bits of women. That's all he can see—there's a tabu in the tribe against white men seeing the women—they stick their arm or leg or whatever it is through a curtain. (I don't know what happens if it isn't an outlying bit: must ask Brown.) " Well, he noticed that the last limb stuck through the women's curtain was different—but what the hell? He treats the animals, anyhow.

" Intelligent beasts—that was a lioness, not a lion by the way."