"Easy Does It"
Giclée canvas print:
16"x20", edition size 100 s/n
$775 unframed |
Canada and other International
customers call (941) 484-6164 to place your order. U.S. customers
may use secure Paypal ordering for unframed prints only:
Unframed
print - $775 +
$15 handling/shipping = $790 |
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The early morning sun has hardly warmed
the savannah when the hunting party of five and their gun bearers
left camp to gallop lions. This sport (also called riding lions)
was popular and considered to have no equal in the early 1900s
of British and German East Africa (now Kenya and Tanzania).
Some lions had been seen the night before
by one of the hunters, so they were heading to where they had
been sighted. Upon arriving at the site, they saw vultures circling
overhead and assumed the lions must be on a kill. The two female
members of the party, Lady Waterford and Mrs. Ward, were asked
to ride to high ground so they may watch the hunt from a safe
distance. Their husbands, along with Blayney Percival, rode on
in earnest towards the presumed location of the kill. To their
surprise there were some thirteen lions. On seeing the hunters,
the lions scattered, each hunter galloping after his chosen quarry;
gunshots rang out from all directions. Blayney caught sight of
three lions heading for the cover of a small riverbed and took
off after them. Finally, after a hard ride, he could see two
of them in the marsh, but had lost sight of the third; he dismounted
and walked towards some higher ground and a termite mound. He
was not six paces from his horse when the missing lioness suddenly
sprang up from low cover and showed itself and all its anger.
Blayney, who never rode with a rifle (his gun bearer would ride
separately or travel on foot with the rifle) only had a colt
.45 revolver. He was on his own, the gun bearer was elsewhere.
The two foes froze for a moment, eyes locked. Blayney, with his
inadequate revolver in hand, began to walk backwards, ever-so-slowly,
his left hand raised as if to somehow prevent the inevitable
charge. Blayney called to his horse without looking round, not
wanting to take his eyes off the lioness. He reached behind and
felt the welcome head of his mount. Still half watching the lioness,
he turned and vaulted into the saddle, giving the horse the spur
as he took off hell-for-leather. The lioness remained motionless
as the hunter rode off leaving a cloud of dust. Blayneys
fear had now turned into anger - at himself, not the lioness,
for getting into such a situation.
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