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Authors: Edgar Rice Burroughs
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MAN-EATERS
Edgar Rice Burroughs
I have had many adventures with lions, mostly vicarious; and of the many things that I have learned about them the most outstanding is that a lion is always a lion, unpredictable. Recently I talked with a man who had just returned from East Africa, where, he said, the lions were perfectly harmless and had to be shooed out of the way; but if I were he I should not bank too heavily on this experience with lions. I recall reading in the papers a number of years ago of a lion that escaped in the London Zoo being chased back into its cage by a young man, with an umbrella. On the other hand, my old friend Charlie Gay of Gay's Lion Farm at El Monte,California, has been badly mauled by lions he had been working with daily.
I think that the occasions upon which lions will attack a man are astonishingly few in comparison with those upon which they might be expected to attack, for it must be remembered that lions are extremely nervous and temperamental and that they attack more often because of fright than because of ferocity. Two occurrences which I witnessed rather bear this out. One took place on a Tarzan set a number of years ago where I was watching the shooting of a lion sequence with my little daughter, then only a small child. They were working with a young and very nervous lion; and the arena was no place to be with a small child, as lions appear to have a gustatory predilection for little children (dozens of times I have seen them charge the sides of their arenas in attempts to get at mine) even when not impelled by hunger.
We were supposed to be protected from the lion by a temporary fence, and as I had confidence in the trainer I felt that we were in no danger. A great deal of trouble was experienced in getting the lion to approach the camera at the right angle. Half a dozen men were chasing him around with whips, firing blank cartridges at him, whooping and yelling. It would have been quite enough to have wrecked the equanimity of a stone Buddha. It wrecked the lion's. His one desire in life seemed to be to escape. In his attempts to do so it might have been expected that some one would be hurt. He ran toward the camera and between the legs of the tripod. The cameraman was the next obstacle in the direct line of his progress. He deserves a Croix de guerre. Instead of abandoning his camera to possible demolition, he hoisted up one leg and let the lion pass beneath it; then the lion jumped the low fence that separated him from myself and several other idiots.
Remembering that lions like little children and that the trainer had warned us to stand perfectly still if anything went wrong, I pushed my daughter behind me and stood still. I stood very still. By comparison, a tombstone would have been dancing a merry saraband. The lion had his choice of idiots, but he harmed no one. Here was every provocation for attack; and had the lion been ferocious he would have attacked, for he was nervous and frightened. Had he attacked, it would have been because of fright rather than ferocity.
On another occasion I was on location with M-G-M when the director was attempting to shoot a lioness charging directly into the camera. The camera, the cameraman, and his assistant were located in a wooden box in front of which there was a hole through which the camera shot was to be made. The box was built of 2x12's and the lid spiked on. They wanted it to be lionproof. Above and behind the camera box was the lioness' cage. The plan was to start her with a rush from the opposite end of the arena, have her run for her cage, to reach which she would have to leap to the top of the camera box. The resultant shot would have shown a head-on charge of a lioness, with the beast rising in air to seize its prey at the end of the charge. Marvellous! That is if the lioness had understood what was expected of her, but she didn't. When she approached the camera box she saw a nice, dark, inviting looking hole into which she could
Edgar Rice Burroughs
I have had many adventures with lions, mostly vicarious; and of the many things that I have learned about them the most outstanding is that a lion is always a lion, unpredictable. Recently I talked with a man who had just returned from East Africa, where, he said, the lions were perfectly harmless and had to be shooed out of the way; but if I were he I should not bank too heavily on this experience with lions. I recall reading in the papers a number of years ago of a lion that escaped in the London Zoo being chased back into its cage by a young man, with an umbrella. On the other hand, my old friend Charlie Gay of Gay's Lion Farm at El Monte,California, has been badly mauled by lions he had been working with daily.
I think that the occasions upon which lions will attack a man are astonishingly few in comparison with those upon which they might be expected to attack, for it must be remembered that lions are extremely nervous and temperamental and that they attack more often because of fright than because of ferocity. Two occurrences which I witnessed rather bear this out. One took place on a Tarzan set a number of years ago where I was watching the shooting of a lion sequence with my little daughter, then only a small child. They were working with a young and very nervous lion; and the arena was no place to be with a small child, as lions appear to have a gustatory predilection for little children (dozens of times I have seen them charge the sides of their arenas in attempts to get at mine) even when not impelled by hunger.
We were supposed to be protected from the lion by a temporary fence, and as I had confidence in the trainer I felt that we were in no danger. A great deal of trouble was experienced in getting the lion to approach the camera at the right angle. Half a dozen men were chasing him around with whips, firing blank cartridges at him, whooping and yelling. It would have been quite enough to have wrecked the equanimity of a stone Buddha. It wrecked the lion's. His one desire in life seemed to be to escape. In his attempts to do so it might have been expected that some one would be hurt. He ran toward the camera and between the legs of the tripod. The cameraman was the next obstacle in the direct line of his progress. He deserves a Croix de guerre. Instead of abandoning his camera to possible demolition, he hoisted up one leg and let the lion pass beneath it; then the lion jumped the low fence that separated him from myself and several other idiots.
Remembering that lions like little children and that the trainer had warned us to stand perfectly still if anything went wrong, I pushed my daughter behind me and stood still. I stood very still. By comparison, a tombstone would have been dancing a merry saraband. The lion had his choice of idiots, but he harmed no one. Here was every provocation for attack; and had the lion been ferocious he would have attacked, for he was nervous and frightened. Had he attacked, it would have been because of fright rather than ferocity.
On another occasion I was on location with M-G-M when the director was attempting to shoot a lioness charging directly into the camera. The camera, the cameraman, and his assistant were located in a wooden box in front of which there was a hole through which the camera shot was to be made. The box was built of 2x12's and the lid spiked on. They wanted it to be lionproof. Above and behind the camera box was the lioness' cage. The plan was to start her with a rush from the opposite end of the arena, have her run for her cage, to reach which she would have to leap to the top of the camera box. The resultant shot would have shown a head-on charge of a lioness, with the beast rising in air to seize its prey at the end of the charge. Marvellous! That is if the lioness had understood what was expected of her, but she didn't. When she approached the camera box she saw a nice, dark, inviting looking hole into which she could
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