“The lion had charged up to within ten yards of them, and then, no doubt, awed, by their steadiness, he had pulled up, and was now walking slowly up and down like an officer in command, growling and showing his teeth, and looking a very noble animal with his heavy yellow mane floating around him. Very likely he would have remained like this until we had reloaded had not a young fellow in the first rank flung his assagai, with an insulting expression, at him; but as the spear-head entered he made two bounds forward, singling out the unfortunate man, who, however, met him pluckily, presenting him with his great six-foot shield to tear at, while he stuck him in the chest with his long and keen double-edged stabbing spear. As he did so there was a sudden jerk, as of a steel trap closing along the line, through which I was in time to catch sight of two more assagais being simultaneously plunged into the beast. All those who had run away hurried up, and a dense mass was formed, pushing and struggling to get into the centre, making the scene somewhat resemble a native foot-ball match I had once seen in the colonies. Such a contest could not possibly be continued long. Dozens of spears had been buried in the brute’s body theinstant it had reached the man, while, although I could tell by the shouting that they were still stabbing it, it was probably only a dead body on which they were wreaking their vengeance. Be that as it might, it was nearly half an hour before I could find an opening that led to the lion’s carcass, and I do not think there was one solitary individual among all who were out that day who had not gratified himself by driving his spear into it; at any rate, its skin was a perfect sieve, and had at least five or six hundred holes in it. The price at which the victory was gained was comparatively small, only one man having received a fatal wound; while the one upon whom the lion had sprung escaped with some severe gashes and a broken arm.”
Those italics inserted in this narrative were not placed there by Drummond, but by the writer. They are intended to mark a propensity which he shared with many others to accuse the lion of cowardice while in the act of relating his deeds of desperation. This one it appears was “cowardly” because, with a shattered shoulder and other severe wounds, he did not at once attack a hundred armed men drawn up to receive him. Again and again had he penetrated into the midst of a populous village, and torn people out of their houses. All the same, he paused during the fight described, and was a poltroon. It is true that after walking up and down before his enemies like a lion of the Atlas as described by Gérard, he finally charged home and fought until cut to pieces. Still he was “cowardly.” This is perplexing; there must be some standard by which courage is judged of in the case of lions that ordinary people know nothing about.
It is disappointing to find a man whom Lloyd calls “the well-informed Andersson,” saying that “the length of a South African adult lion, from the nose to the extremity of the tail, is from eleven to twelve feet, ... and his weight not less than from five to six hundred pounds.” He knew all about the stretching of pegged-out skins, he had never seen a lion eleven feet long in his life, and yet he adds two feet, or at least eighteen inches, to the animal’s average length, and a hundred pounds to its weight. Nine feet and a half is the average length of a well-known Indian tiger, which is certainly a larger animal than the lion, and both may occasionally reach a length of ten feet, but very rarely. Sometimes, also, lions weigh as much as five hundred pounds, although few persons have met with specimens so heavy; but beyond these measurements and weights, nothing is on record that deserves serious consideration. There is a perfect fog of contradictions about the animal’s strength, leaping power, and his manner of carrying off prey; so that as far as testimony in these matters goes, no one can arrive at any conclusion. A lion stands about thirty-six inches high at the shoulder, and, of course, exceptional individuals may be taller. He can no more go straight with his head twisted over his shoulder than a man could; therefore, taking into consideration the length of his neck, those stories told about the manner in which lions bear off large animals in their mouths, and gallop away with oxen flung across their backs, have the disadvantage of being impossible. Thunberg asserts that one of these beasts will “attack an ox of the largest size, and very nimblythrow it over his shoulders, and leap a fence four feet high.” Leveson says he leaps the stockade of a kraal whose palisades are six feet above the ground, with a steer in his jaws; and Sparman declares that he saw a lion carry off a heifer in his mouth, “as a cat would a rat.” Drummond’s lions sprang over thorn fences of an indefinite height, carrying their human victims; Gérard’s made no difficulty about clearing the enclosures of Arab douars, while weighted with cattle. Montgomery Martin knew them to bear away horses and cows under like circumstances, and quite as many and as good authorities protest that all this is nonsense, and that they never did, and could not do, anything of the kind.
How much intellect this species possesses, and to what extent it can be cultivated, remains almost unknown. Their organization makes them subtle, fierce, and sometimes passionate beyond the limits of self-control, but they are, no doubt, capable of affection, and certainly exhibit marked preferences and dislikes. Apart from the instruction lions receive from their parents,—chiefly the mother,—and independently of anything which association may do for them, all are to a great degree self-taught; each one according to its capacity, to the extent of its opportunities, and correspondently with the character of its own mind. They design and carry out their conceptions, they imagine, and act the scenes suggested by fancy, they remember and combine their experiences.
Lions are not hunted with elephants in Africa. Dutch settlers in the southern part of this continent use horses, but only ride up within shooting distance, dismount, wheeltheir animals round so that they may receive the charge, if one is made, and then fire volleys with their roers—guns nearly as large as Asiatic and Mediæval wall-pieces. A number of other European sportsmen have also shot from the saddle; the advantage of this plan being that, in case the lion is only wounded, their horses will enable them to escape. Care is, however, necessary not to get too close; otherwise, so great is this beast’s speed for a short distance, that a mounted man is almost certain to be overtaken.
The lion is a nocturnal animal, although in the more wild and desolate regions he may often be seen by day, especially in dark and stormy weather, and then either singly or in troops. Families of lions live together until the cubs are mature enough to shift for themselves; but a troop is a temporary co-operative association designed to drive game. Andersson states that he has seen “six or seven together, all of whom, so far as he could judge, were full-grown, or nearly so.” Freeman relates that he once encountered a party consisting of ten lions. On another occasion he saw “five lions (two males and three females) in a party, and two of these were in the act of pulling down a splendid giraffe, the other three watching, close at hand, and with devouring looks, the deadly strife.” Delgorgue once counted thirty lions formed in a hunting line. Many are really shot on foot in Africa, many more indeed than the tigers reported to have been killed in this manner in India.
Skaärm-shooting—the occupation by the hunter of a partially covered trench near a water-hole,—and the machan,or tree-platform, has also been adopted. Lions may often be seen walking about amid herds of antelopes on the African plains “like Caffre chieftains,” as Delgorgue expresses it, “counting their flocks.” The antelope knows that it cannot be caught so long as it keeps beyond the range of his first few lightning-like bounds, and thus its equanimity is in nowise disturbed by this destroyer’s presence. Nothing but a stalk or an ambush will bring one of these fleet animals within their enemies’ reach.
“Generally, however,” says Andersson, “during the day a lion lies concealed on some mountain side, or beneath the shade of umbrageous trees or wide-spreading bushes. He is also partial to lofty reeds and long, rank yellow grass, such as occurs in low-lying ‘vleys.’ From these haunts he sallies forth when the sun goes down and commences his nightly prowl,” and except the elephant and rhinoceros, there is no land animal in Africa that he cannot, and does not, kill. When lions attack the cattle of native rulers, their herdsmen, whose lives are held by native masters in no manner of account, are compelled to take their shields and spears and go after the marauder. There is no particular skill displayed save in tracking the beast to its lair, and the desperate close fighting which follows is due to the fact that the men know it is much better to be wounded or even killed, than trust themselves to the tender mercies of a negro chief who is enraged at the loss of his property. Namaqua Hottentots, who possess firearms, never take any risks. They go out in large parties, get into a safe place, and when a lion is provoked to charge, he is met with a storm of balls. A filthy little clay-colored Bushmanwill steal upon the sleeping beast with a caution and skill equal to its own. He has no weapon but a toy bow and tiny, often headless, arrow, poisoned with the entrails of the N’ga or Kalihari caterpillar, mixed probably with some form of Euphorbia. This savage wounds the sleeper without being himself seen, and an injury, however slight, is fatal. Delgorgue describes a lion-hunt by Caffres as follows:
“One of them, carrying a large shield of concave form, made of thick buffalo hide, approaches the animal boldly, and hurls at him an assagai or javelin. The lion bounds on the aggressor, but the man in the meanwhile has thrown himself flat on the ground, covered by his buckler. While the beast is trying the effect of his claws and teeth on the convex side of the shield, where they make no impression ... the armed men surround him and pierce his body with numerous assagais, all of which he fancies he receives from the individual beneath the shield. Then these assailants retire, and the lion grows faint and soon falls beside the Caffre with the buckler, who takes care not to move until the terrible brute has ceased to exhibit any signs of life.”
It is well known that, as a whole, the native populations of Africa display more enterprise and courage in the pursuit of dangerous wild beasts, than do those of Asia. But extraordinary and well-nigh incredible as are some of the stories about the temerity of certain tribes in lion-hunting as told by Freeman and Sir A. Alexander, the account given by Sir Samuel Baker (“Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia”) of the Aggageers, or Arab sword-hunters of the Upper Nile, fully equals them. It is true that he did notsee Taber or Abu Do, those slayers of elephants, cut a lion through the spine with their Solingen blades; but there is no doubt that these men encounter the animal on horseback and armed with their swords alone.
Brave as the Hamran Arabs were, and skilful, Baker, who has recorded their deeds, was not behind them in daring; and as the following narrative may almost be said to stand by itself in the records of hunting as an illustration of what can be done by a sportsman who is entirely courageous and cool, it is given in the words in which he has himself related his feat.
Some lions had been wandering about his camp for several nights, and they also gave him a good deal of annoyance by devouring game that he shot. “Under these circumstances,” Sir Samuel says, “I resolved to circumvent one or the other of these beasts. On the following morning, therefore, I took Taber Noor, with Hadji Ali and Hassan, two of my trusty Tokrooris, and went to the spot where I had left the carcass of the buffalo I had killed on the preceding day. As I had expected, nothing remained, not even a bone; the ground was much trampled, and tracks of lions were upon the sand, but the body of the buffalo had been dragged into the thorny jungle. I was determined, if possible, to get a shot; and therefore followed carefully the trail left by the carcass, which formed a path in the withered grass. Unfortunately the lions had dragged the buffalo down wind, and, after I had arrived within the thick nabbuk and high grass, I came to the conclusion that my only chance would be to make a long circuit, and to creep up wind through the thorns until Ishould be advised by my nose of the position of the carcass, which would be by this time in a state of putrefaction, and the lions would most probably be with the body.
“Accordingly, I struck off to my left, and continuing straight forward for some hundred yards, again struck into the thick jungle, and came round to the wind. Success depended on extreme caution, therefore I advised my three men to keep close behind me with the spare rifles, and I carried my single-barrelled Beattie. This rifle was extremely accurate, and for that reason I chose it for this close work, when I expected to get a shot at the eye or the forehead of a lion crouching in the bush. Softly, and with difficulty, I crept forward, followed closely by my men, through the high withered grass beneath the dense green nabbuk bushes, peering through the thick covert with nerves strung to the full pitch and finger on the trigger, ready for any emergency. We had thus advanced for about half an hour, during which I frequently applied my nose to within a foot of the ground to catch the scent, when a sudden puff of wind brought the unmistakable smell of decomposing flesh. For a moment I halted, and looking round at my men, made a sign that we were near the carcass, and that they were to be ready with the rifles.
“Again I crept forward, bending and sometimes crawling beneath the thorns, to avoid the smallest noise. As I approached, the scent became stronger, until at length I felt that I must be close to the carcass. This was highly exciting. Fully prepared for a quick shot, I stealthily crept on. A tremendous roar in the dense thorns within a few feet of me suddenly brought the rifle to my shoulder;almost at the same instant I saw the three-quarters figure of either a lion or a lioness within three yards of me, on the other side of the bush under which I had been creeping. The foliage concealed the head, but I could almost have touched the shoulder with my rifle. Much depended upon the bullet, and I fired exactly through the centre of the shoulder. Another tremendous roar, and a crash in the bushes, as the animal made a bound forward, was followed by another roar and a second lion took the exact position of the last, and stood wondering at the report of the rifle, and seeking for the cause of this intrusion. This was a grand lion with a shaggy mane; but I was unloaded. Keeping my eyes fixed upon the beast, I stretched my hand back for a spare rifle; the lion remained standing, but gazing up wind with his head raised, and snuffing in the air for the scent of an enemy.
“I looked back for an instant, and saw my Tokrooris faltering about five yards behind me. I looked daggers at them, gnashing my teeth, and shaking my fist. They saw the lion, and Taber Noor, snatching a rifle from Hadji Ali, was just about to bring it, when Hassan, ashamed, ran forward—the lion disappeared at the same moment. Never was such a fine chance lost through the indecision of gun-bearers.... But where was the first lion? Some remains of the buffalo lay upon my right, and I expected to find him most probably crouching in the thorns near us. Having reloaded, I took my Reilly No. 10 rifle, and listened attentively for a sound. Presently I heard within a low growl. Taber Noor drew his sword, and with his shield before him searched for the lion,while I crept forward towards the sound, which was repeated. A loud roar, accompanied by a rush in the jungle, showed us a glimpse of the lion as he bounded off within ten or twelve yards, but I had no chance to fire. Again the low growl was repeated, and upon quietly creeping towards the spot, I saw a splendid animal crouched upon the ground, among the withered and broken grass. The lioness lay dying from the bullet wound in her shoulder. Occasionally in her rage she bit her own paw violently, and then struck and clawed the ground. A pool of blood was by her side. She was about ten yards from us, and I instructed my men to throw a clod of earth at her (there were no stones), to prove whether she could rise, while I stood ready with the rifle. She merely replied with a dull roar, and I ended her misery with a ball through the head.”
“Lions,” says Andersson, “if captured when quite young, and treated with kindness, become readily domesticated, and greatly attached to their owners, whom they follow about like dogs.” This statement is hardly worthy of its author, and the fact that these beasts are often kept in African villages, and made pets of by Asiatic rulers, does not at all warrant his sweeping assertion. He knew better than to suppose that a young wild beast did not inherit the traits of its ancestors, or that one cub was the same as another. Likewise there is no reason to doubt that he was acquainted with the incidents which constantly attend such experiments in the places mentioned. All this has already been discussed, but the lion’s place in the opinions of those who live in the same land with him,and are unprepared to meet his majesty, is a more convincing proof with respect to his character than any other that could be advanced. A very small portion of mankind respect anything that they do not fear. Wherever lions exist under the conditions mentioned, they are dreaded, and with reason, and then, very often, their “daring and audacity almost exceed belief,” according to Andersson, who after all expresses the sense of those writers in whose self-contradictory evidence they are called cowards. It was because men dreaded the lion that he became the emblem of wisdom in Assyrian sculpture and the type of courage in Hebrew poetry; that his head crowns the body of an Egyptian god, and that his form has been taken as a royal cognizance in the East and West. For no other cause is it that death is the penalty for any one but a ruler to wear his claws in Zululand, or that among the Algerian Arabs his whole body possesses magic virtues.
Lion flesh is eaten in various parts of the earth, although that counts for nothing with regard to its edibility, for men in certain phases of development eat everything. Andersson ate some (“The Okovango River”) and found it white, juicy, and “not unlike veal.” Much the same was said ages before his time in Philostratos’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana, and though this work is doubtless an Alexandrian forgery, the evidence in this particular is just as good as if it were authentic.
In an account of this creature it remains to say a few words more about its intellect, and the conditions under which it is developed. Given the raw material of mind as a variable quantity in all beings belonging to the samegroup, the difference between them, apart from that which depends upon unequal endowment, results from the degree to which the exigencies of life force individuals to use that amount of intelligence which they possess. Existence to a lion is a very different thing in one place and another; it is difficult or easy, varied or monotonous, dangerous or safe, solitary or the reverse. In other words, those adjustments of internal to external coexistences and sequences which constitute what is essential in life, may be many and great, or few and small. In either case adaptations must be made, but unequal enlargements of faculty are the necessary results. Take, for example, the average lion and place him, as he is placed in fact, under the opposite conditions of having been born and reared in a desert, or brought forth amid a cluster of villages and trained to prey upon human beings. That such specimens cannot be the same needs no saying, and if not these, then not any who are differently placed; so that to go into some large province and write about this beast as if the few individuals met with summarized all the possibilities of its race, is manifestly absurd. Actually, and as far as he goes, a lion is as much an individual as a man; like men also, the more general resemblances and differences among them which are not due to organization, depend upon their position.
Diminish the quantity of game in the area where a lion lives, and its character is altered. Take away certain objects of prey, and replace them with others, and the brute will be more or less cunning, fierce, bold, enterprising, and active. He cannot live at all, without adapting himself to the character of those beings among whom his lot is cast,and as they change so will he change also. The same is true with respect to alterations in physical conditions.
Lions vary with sex; the lioness is usually less grave and inert, but quicker, more excitable, savage and enterprising than her mate. Once when Gérard was lying in wait by a dead horse a lioness arrived with her cub, but pretended not to see the hunter. She instantly pounced on her unsuspecting whelp, drove it out of harm’s way, then made a detour, and stole silently back to kill him. This means maternal solicitude to the extent of temporary self-forgetfulness, presence of mind, rapid comprehension of the circumstances involved in an unexpected and unusual situation, determined purpose, and courage. Tigers constantly make false charges with the design of intimidating their foes; lions perhaps resort to this ruse less frequently, but they adopt other means to the same end. Much of their awe-inspiring appearance is due to causes acting independently of will; still, they deliberately attempt to excite terror. One night while Green and his friend Bonfield occupied a screen near a watering-place, a lion passed and repassed, inspecting them closely. He wished the intruders away, but thought it imprudent to attack their position, and they objected to fire because the noise would frighten away elephants for which they were waiting. Then the lion walked off a little distance, lay down facing them, and reflected on the situation. Shortly he sprang up and began to cut extraordinary capers, at the same time setting up “the most hideous noise, neither a roar nor a growl, but something between the two.”
The beast was trying to frighten off these unwelcomevisitors who might keep game at a distance and interfere with his supper. No one who watches young wild beasts, and more particularly those of the cat kind, can fail to notice that they continually rehearse the chief acts of their lives under the influence of imagination. A lion’s memory is good, and he can be taught much. His judgment is excellent, and he seldom attempts what he is unable to carry out. In cold blood, prudence is one of his distinguishing characteristics, and he is also very suspicious and on the lookout for destructive devices and inventions of the only enemy he has reason to fear; that is to say, man. Thus, although parts of Africa may be said to be undermined with pitfalls, lions rarely fall into them and when this happens they often claw steps in their walls and get out. Not, however, out of the trenches dug inside of the fence round an Arab cattle pen, for there their enemies occupy its edge, and then it is seen that there are certainly occasions when lions meet inevitable death in a very dignified manner.