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94 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S thing. This was new ground, and the consequences could be dire. One can only imagine the rumble from skeptics in the banquet room and the chime of wine glasses as the members raised toast after toast to the valiant archers for attempting such a dangerous and seemingly impossible task. The room held a sizable cadre of skeptics, too, who cast mocking sneers at the two men. Most of the club members were seasoned rifle hunters who doubted the efficacy of the bow on big game, even though the duo had bagged grizzly bear, brown bear, black bear, moose, wild sheep, mountain goats, cougar, deer, and other game with their homemade bows. "You must master the lion," seasoned club members insisted. "Nothing in North America can hold a candle to him. Not grizzly, not brown bear, nothing." Some members believed that Pope and Young were mocking their own heroic hunts with rifles. "Let them try lions," the riflemen challenged. "They will find out soon enough." The highly developed efficiency of the modern rifle stood in sharp contrast to homemade longbows of osage and yew, arrows fashioned from birch and turkey feathers, and steel broadheads. Could the differences be overcome? Pope and Young had successfully duplicated modern firearm hunts, in their minds, by simply substituting the bow and arrow as the primary implement of a hunt. Outcomes on North American big game had been equal, so far. The archers believed that rifle hunting was a "cruel slaughter." Archery hunting, on the contrary, elevated the ethics of hunting. Archers who had taken animals with a bow felt that greater fairness had been provided the game. That's all well and good, but just how fair would you dare be with an African lion? Dr. Pope put it this way: "The man who shoots with the bow must put his strength of arm into his weapon. His eye must be clear and his nerve steady. He must approach his game by greater skill than if he used a rifle." Steady nerves and greater skill aside, no amount of an archer's cunning would stop a lion's charge. Just what was the plan for this inevitable circumstance? The African veldt would provide the final testing ground. There, the lions would decide. I t was several months prior to the club's banquet that the idea for an African safari with the bow materialized. A writer friend of Pope's had gotten the ball rolling. Stewart Edward White, who had spent some time in Africa hunting big game, told Pope that he had no further desire to hunt with a gun, so why not try the bow and arrow? Pope quickly warmed up to White's idea, and the two began planning a safari to disembark in early 1925. Pope's close friend and hunting partner, Arthur Young, was included in the party. Young was a Californian who worked for a San Francisco newspaper. He was renowned as an expert rifle- shot and a bold archer who had taken brown bear and grizzles. Rounding out the foursome was Leslie Simson, an American engineer who had retired from the mining trade to start a hunting camp in Tanganyika. He had spent the last 20 years hunting lions, elephants, and other big game for various museums. Leslie T he gentlemen of the African Big Game Club of America, meeting in New York City in February 1925, were hosting a lavishly royal farewell dinner for Saxton Pope, M.D. and Arthur Young on the day before their departure from New York and their long journey to the Dark Continent. Such dinners were common fare among wealthy outdoorsmen who were hell-bent to add their names to the list of members who had led a successful safari reminiscent of Roosevelt's pioneering hunt in 1909. Curiosity and doubt filled the banquet hall. Club members, attracted by the stories of the duo's harrowing hunting exploits across North America, were anxious to hear their unique plan to conquer Africa in a new way. Was it daring? Yes; audacious! Was it challenging? Without a doubt. Few words could adequately describe the plan. Simply put, Pope and Young would hunt in Africa with bow and arrow. They were on a quest to prove, once and for all, that their beloved bows were up to the task. They believed their bows were strong enough, accurate enough, and safe enough to take the African lion. No modern archer had ever attempted such a L-r: William Palmer, champion archer and member of the African Big Game Club of America; Art Young; Saxton Pope, M.D.; and Robert Elmer, M.D., author and host of the dinner party for Pope & Young the evening before they left for Africa. Young holds his "rhino" arrow, made especially for shooting a rhino with the bow.