CARRIED OFF BY A LION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1675, 15 February 1917, Page 4

CARRIED OFF BY A LION.

HOW A TROOPER WAS SAVED

A thrilling encounter between a British soldier and a lion occurred in “German" East Africa during the progress of the Fourth South African Horse toward Tabora.

Trooper Brighton, according lo one correspondent, had a remarkable experience. He was on picket duty on the night of September 22, and when relieved turned in for sleep wrapped in his coat and blanket.

The sentry to his horror, saw a huge lion spring out of the dense bush that surrounded them, sieze hold of Brighton, and carry him off. When he had been carried about ten yards, however, the trooper’s shouts and the shots tired by the sentry caused the lion to drop his terrified mouthful. The trooper by this time was in a fainting condition, and was carried by his comrades to camp, when Captain Macdonald, of the S.A.M.C., found that he had made an almost miraculous escape.

Wounds and scratches in the baidc and idlest were all the injuries he bad received, thanks to the texture of his military overcoat. Brighton’s description of the fetid pair of jaws that seized him and his sense of impotence in the lion's clutches is likely to remain a vivid reality to the end of his days. The lion was evidently an aged forest king that had prowled round the camp previously and attacked an aged mule and some emanciated horses.