THE LION
“Fromthe earliest times,” says the writer on this subject in the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” “few animals have been better known to man than the lion.” It is precisely because of this knowledge, for the most part purely imaginary, that the real lion is less known than almost any of the other great wild beasts. Not so much in this case on account of the paucity of facts as from a plethora of fiction, his actual character has very imperfectly come to light.
Since Aristotle there have always been naturalists who contended for two species of these animals, and sometimes more.
THE LION.[From a photograph by Gambier Bolton. Copyright.]
THE LION.[From a photograph by Gambier Bolton. Copyright.]
THE LION.
[From a photograph by Gambier Bolton. Copyright.]
In Greece, classification was made on the basis of size; in Rome, upon that of color. With regard to the first, Sir Samuel Baker remarks that the lions of Cutch and Guzrat are perhaps not so large as their African congeners; but according to Dr. Jerdon (“Mammals of India”) measurements show that they are fully equal in this respect. Gérard, Livingstone, and others notice very discernible local contrasts in bulk among them in different parts of Africa itself, and it has been maintained by many that the lion grows smaller as one goes south from the Atlas. Major Smee has also been largely followed in his opinionthat the Asiatic, or more particularly the Indian, lion is maneless. Dr. Blyth, however, was able to demonstrate from the specimens in the Calcutta Museum that this was not the case, and his view of the accidental character of this deficiency is no doubt the true one. Frederick Courteney Selous (“A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa”) paid particular attention to this feature, and he states that “out of fifty male lion skins, scarcely two will be found alike in the color or length of mane”; he adds that, judging from the same facts which those who multiply natural groups rely upon, “it would be as reasonable to suppose that there are twenty species as two.”
This is but a hint at those discrepancies which have arisen from attaching different values to external and secondary characteristics. Antagonisms of this kind are overabundant, still there is no doubt that wherever lions now exist, they are specifically the same. There is but one genus of lion, with a single species, whose members vary in size, skin-appendages, color, temper, and habits, with the physiography of those provinces they inhabit, and of their human population, with breed, age, temperament, special environment, and their personal experience of men and things.
Sir Samuel Baker (“The Rifle and Hound in Ceylon”) remarks in the course of his observations upon the Cingalese buffalo that no individual opinion upon the traits and disposition of an animal “can be depended upon,” unless its pursuit “has been followed as a sport by itself.” The results of many hunters’ experiences are, however, on record, and so far as facts go, we are actually possessedof a more varied and extensive acquaintance with the species than any individual contact with it would be likely to give.
There is much that is inadequate and also illusory in Gérard’s descriptions. Still, he met the formidable adversaries he encountered in a heroic spirit, and had seen them face to face too often not to be disabused of many errors. The sultan of the desert as known by him did not fear man, was not abashed in his presence, and could not be quelled by his eye. On the contrary, an attempt to stare him out of countenance was, as Sir Samuel Baker observes, the surest means to provoke an attack. Gérard’s experience carried him too far. He only knew the lions of Algeria and Oran, but he thought that these animals were the same everywhere. Such is not the case. The race is now extinct in great areas where it was once distributed. No trace of it is left in many countries of Asia Minor, and it is dying out in Western Asia and India. In some regions man has exterminated the lion or driven him away, and there are other districts where this animal has learned that the battle nearly always goes against him, and where he now has to be forced to fight. On the other hand, certain tribes cower before lions, and this does not fail to change the relations they sustain towards mankind.
This imposing animal makes its appearance in art and literature very early. Frequent mention is made of it in the Cuneiform tablets and Hebrew Scriptures. In Pentaur’s Egyptian Epic upon the War of Rameses II. against the Cheta or Hittites, lions are said to have accompaniedthe king’s chariot, and fought as the Greek mastiffs (the dogs of Molossos) did at Marathon, or those of the British during Cæsar’s invasion. Herodotus (“Polymnia”) states that when Xerxes’ hordes were moving in the country that lay between the rivers Nestos in Abedra, and Achelous of Acarnania, the camel trains suffered much loss from the attacks of these animals. He informs us that their range was restricted to this district, and expresses his surprise that camels, being creatures that these lions had never seen and might have been supposed to shun, were their especial victims. After Herodotus, when the Greeks began to write about everything that attracted their attention, much was said in one way or another concerning lions, but it amounted to no more than the little that can be found in Roman archives. It really seems as if classic writers left out on purpose everything that one would have cared most to know. Not even the minute and laborious scholarship of the sixteenth century, devoted as it mainly was to the explication of antiquity, has succeeded in extracting from these records any information which is at all commensurate with the opportunities afforded for observation in ancient times. The lion occupied an exceptional position then as now; he was a favorite subject for poetic allusion, for epigram, and rhetorical flourishes. But his character was as much a conventional one at that time as it is at present. This may be also seen in art, where, whether sculptured and painted, or set in mosaics, he was depicted in what were supposed to be characteristic attitudes from Persepolis and the rock tablets of Kaf to the Sea of Darkness, and from thebanks of the Orontes to the cities of Africa. He impressed antiquity as he has done the modern world, and so far as disposition and personal qualities are concerned, most of what was known or thought then might have been condensed into the modern statement of his traits given in the French “Cyclopédie”; namely, that he was “si fort et si courageux, qu’on l’a appellé le roi des animaux.”
What amount of truth there is in this view we shall see; in the mean time it is natural enough to regret that those who might have accomplished so much, have in fact done so little. Varro, Columella, Aulus Gellius, and others wrote on game and hunting, but classic notices of avenatioin the amphitheatre are as terse and colorless as entries in a log-book. Marsian boars, or wolves from the Apennines were the most formidable creatures an ancient Italian could find in his own country, and Virgil congratulates himself that such was the case. “Rabidæ tigres absunt et saeva leonum semina.” But the scribblers in prose and verse who expatiated upon fish-ponds, nets, gins, snares, Celtic, Lycaonian, and Umbrian hounds, with all the appliances of petty sport, where were they while theLudi Circenseswere going on? How was it that these men, who gossiped about everything, never chatted with the keepers of that greatVivariumnear the Prænestine gate, where there were often wild beasts enough to stock the menageries of the modern world? Why did they not tell of the fleets laden with such cargoes that came to Ostia, interview the men who brought them as they drank rough Massic together in the taverns under the Janiculum,or report the talk of those dark satellites who guarded thevivariaof the Colosseum or theatre of Marcellus?
The reason was this: independently of everything else, a Roman of those days was satiated with the sight of actual slaughter until all that now fascinates the attention and enthralls the interest of a reader of adventures had become insipid. Thebestiarii, or wild beast fighters, were a class apart from other gladiators. So far as our meagre supply of information goes, these men did not meet a royal tiger as a Ghoorka now does; that is to say, did not trust to perfect nerve, training, and activity, to avoid the brute’s onset, and slay it by striking at advantage; they appeared in armor andactually foughtwith sword or spear. Considering the style in which lions and tigers combat, one cannot divine the use made of any defensive panoply, which, so far as we can judge, would seem to have been more of an encumbrance than an aid. An iron sword two feet long (for the much-talked-of Iberian steel was most likely only a good quality of untempered metal) could hardly have availed a hampered man in a hand-to-hand struggle of this kind, except in case of accidents that must have been of rare occurrence. Julius Cæsar’s Thessalian horsemen chased giraffes around the arena until they were exhausted, and then killed them with a dagger thrust at the junction of the spine and head; but it is safe to say that nobestiariusarmed with avenabulumwent through any performances of this kind with a black rhinoceros. Yet every formidable animal on earth perished upon “a Roman holiday.” That is, however, all we know.
It is now the fashion to say that lions are such timidcreatures that they might be expected to do little injury if they got out of their cages in the presence of a crowd. When, writes Plutarch, the city of Megara was stormed by Calamus, their keepers or the authorities loosed those lions kept for the games—“opened their dens, and unchained them in the streets to stop the enemy’s onslaught. But instead of that they fell upon the citizens and tore them in such a manner that their very foes were struck with horror.” Another curious comment upon the timid and retiring behavior of these animals is found in the fact that while they were protected in Africa (preserved for the spectacles) by cruel game laws which deprived people of the natural right of self-defence, the loss of life in that province was so great that it excited compassion even in Rome, and finally led to the mitigation of these statutes by Honorius, and their final abolition during the reign of Justinian.
Moffat (“Missionary Labors and Scenes in South Africa”) had the reputation of knowing more about lions than almost any one else, and it was his opinion that eying them was a very questionable proceeding. Both he and Andersson (“The Lion and the Elephant”) say that this experiment may sometimes apparently succeed, but “under ordinary circumstances” a hungry lion “does not spend any time gazing on the human eye ... but takes the easiest and most expeditious means of making a meal of a man.” It is not very often that things so arrange themselves as to give any one a chance to try what effect can be produced in this way; still everything that could happen has happened, and combining what follows withthe statements already made, it would appear that this much-talked-of personal power is a delusion.
“A lion,” writes the Hon. W. H. Drummond (“The Large Game and Natural History of South and South-east Africa”) “will seldom stand much bullying. He may and often will get out of your way, nay, even leave his prey if you approach it, and should you follow him, will perhaps do so a second time, but that is about the extent of it.” If interference is pushed further, the lion, “if a male, growls deeply, and makes his mane bristle up round him; or, if a lioness, crouches down like a cat, lays her ears back, and shows her teeth, and in most such cases, when the brute is fairly roused, a charge is inevitable whether you advance or retreat.” On the other hand, “some lions make a point of attacking every human being they meet, without provocation or apparent cause.” This is unusual, but “there are many instances of lions having evidently attacked a human being from no other cause than surprise or fear at suddenly finding themselves so close to him.... In the above cases, utter immobility and coolness will often avert an attack; for if the animal, judging by your behavior, imagines that you do not want to hurt it, it will, after trying you for several minutes, and even making one or two sham charges, often walk away and allow you to do the same.... Several instances of this have occurred within my own knowledge. A large native hunting party had gone out and were scattered among the thorns, when one of my gun-bearers, who had accompanied it, suddenly found himself face to face with a full-grown male lion, without a yard between them. He had presence of mindsufficient to stand perfectly still, without attempting to take one of the spears he carried in his left hand into the other, and after a couple of minutes the brute walked away, turning its head round every second to watch him.
“This could not be attributed to the efficacy of the human eye, as the man afterwards told me that he had not dared to raise his from the ground. This lion before going far met another native, who raised his spear, as if to throw it; upon which it instantly sprang upon him, and inflicted such wounds that he died within half an hour. I have no doubt that if this man had stood still, he would have been perfectly safe.”
A still more striking example of the fact that lions, unless hungry, enraged or alarmed, often pass man by is given by Drummond as follows: “A hunter of mine was following the trail of a herd of buffalo through some dense thickets, alone, and armed only with a single barrel. Suddenly a male lion rose out of one of them, and sitting on his hind quarters, snarled at him; he had hardly seen it when another, about three-quarters grown, showed itself within a few yards on one side, while from behind he could hear the low rumbling growl of a third. Partly turning so as to watch them all, he saw that the latter was a lioness, and that three cubs not much larger than cats were following her. He had, unawares, got into the centre of a lion family. Unfortunately, one of the cubs saw him, and without exhibiting the least fear, ran up to him; upon which its mother, in terror for her offspring, rushed up, and, as he afterwards described it, fairly danced round and round him, springing to within a yard of him, sideways, backwards,and in every way but on him. Luckily he was a man of iron nerve, and bred from the cradle in scenes like this; he therefore remained quiet, taking no more notice of the frantic behavior of the lioness than if she had not existed; for, as he said, it was a hundred to one that I did not kill the mother, and, if I had, the other two would have avenged her.” It ended by her ultimately retiring into the thicket, and watching him as he cleared out; but there can be no doubt that any hesitation, nervousness, or involuntary movement on his part would have been fatal.
In his description of the lion, Buffon (“Histoire Naturelle”) has delivered a number of opinions based upon imperfect knowledge. This animal, he says, owes its characteristics to climate alone. Lions only inhabit tropical countries, and among the denizens of hot latitudes they are “le plus fort, le plus fier, le plus terrible de tous.” On the Atlas Mountains, where snow sometimes falls, these beasts have neither the strength, size, courage, nor ferocity of those who roam the southern plains, and for the same reason, the lion of America, if it deserves that name, is but an inferior beast. Man has greatly circumscribed the range ofFelis leo, and the natural character of existing varieties has been greatly changed through his inventions. Formerly lions were bolder than they are at present; still, in the Sahara and other places, it happens that “un seul de ses lions du désert attaque souvent une caravane entière.” Owing to its brave and magnanimous character, a lion only takes life when compelled to do so by hunger. Certain moral qualities may be said to inhere in the species at large, but there are also individual lions that add tothese endowments of their race the finest personal traits. More than one species of this genus exists, and an average lion is about twelve or thirteen feet long. He is less keen of sight, and has not so good an organ of scent as other beasts of prey, and for this reason lions make use of jackals in hunting. All animals they pursue live upon the ground, and in consequence it is not customary with them to climb trees like the tiger and puma—“il ne grimpe pas sur les arbres comme le tigre ou le puma.” Their attack is always made from an ambush, whence the victim is sprung upon and struck down; but it is not devoured until after life is extinct.
All this, it may be repeated, is erroneous. Climate alone does not form geographical varieties. Species require to be adjusted to the whole physiography of their respective regions, and to their organic environments as well. The lion inhabits temperate latitudes where the weather is often cold, and it is on those parallels which in Africa run north and south of the equatorial belt, that he attains his highest development.
With respect to the lion of the Atlas, Major Leveson (“Hunting Grounds of the Old World”), General Daumas (“Les Chevaux du Sahara”), and Gérard (“Journal des Chasseurs”) have shown that it is larger than its congener further south. Buffon’s thirteen feet lions belong to an earlier geological period than ours; no such specimens of the cat kind are at present alive, but his tribute to the courage of the king of beasts is not perhaps altogether undeserved. Of course there is nothing in his remarks about magnanimity and the like, and as for a single lionattacking a caravan, the statement is absurd. Lions and troops of lions are described by many observers—Le Vaillant, Cumming, Oswell, Harris, Davidson, Kerr—as having forayed upon encampments in various ways, but there is no authentic account of any incident such as Buffon relates.
What he says about the animal’s deficiency in sight and scenting power is not supported in any way by facts. There is nothing in the creature’s anatomy to warrant such an assertion. Its olfactory apparatus is well developed, and as it is a beast of prey, and belongs to a family distinguished for keenness of scent, there is no reason to think that this function does not correspond with its structure. Neither is there anything, so far as the writer knows, in the better class of observations made upon lions, to indicate any deficiency in this respect. With reference to sight, if Buffon meant more than that they, as being nocturnal in habit, are at a disadvantage in the sun’s glare, it was, we must believe, a mistake upon his part. Their organ of sight is structurally of a high order; it is so placed that the range of vision is large, and no good authority has disparaged the lion’s far-sightedness, or the defining power of his eye.
None of the great cats is, however, strictly nocturnal except in places where they are constantly pursued. Lions frequently stalk or drive game while the sun is up; they see perfectly well during these hours, and it is evidently a mistake to give the primary importance commonly attributed to it to a peculiarity of vision which theFelidæhave in common with other classes.
Buffon’s opinion of the use to which lions put jackals falls to the ground before facts. It is an old idea that they, and tigers also, employ them as scouts; nevertheless it would appear that the true relation has been overlooked, and that it is the jackal who uses the lion. When a lion leaves his lair he always roars, and if any jackals are in the vicinity, the sound attracts them at once; it is like an invitation to a meal, for these satellites feast upon the offal. Similarly, as the lion’s majestic form moves with long and soft but heavy tread through the gloom, every jackal that sights the grim hunter follows him.
In works on natural history lions are classed among theeducabilia. There is, however, a certain ludicrousness in distinguishing this animal as one that can be taught. So can a flea. Every creature with a nervous system may be and is instructed in some manner. All living things so provided learn, though not necessarily through tuition, nor in all cases consciously. Dr. Maudsley’s remark (“Physiology and Pathology of the Mind”), that “a spinal cord without memory would be an idiotic spinal cord,” is full of meaning. Wherever a nervous arc exists, there is memory and the potentialities of mind. The central axis is nothing more than an integrated series of such connected arcs ending in a brain when the animal is sufficiently elevated.
A whelp is born in the spring, or towards the close of winter, a little sooner or later, as the latitude varies. Before this event the parents have fixed upon some solitary spot in which to establish themselves. The mother’s character undergoes a temporary change forthe better during the period of maternity. While the pairing season lasts she is a shameless wanton, ready at any moment to abandon her mate for a stronger rival. Desperate combats accompany the lion’s courtship, in which both parties are frequently killed, and in almost all instances these are brought on by the lioness, who seems to take a savage pleasure in provoking such duels.
Gérard gives the following story, which is in all essentials a true picture of the behavior of both males and females at the time spoken of. “It was in the stags’ rutting season, and Mohammed, a great hunter of every kind of wild animal, perched himself at sunset in the boughs of an oak tree to watch for a doe that had been seen wandering in the vicinity, accompanied by several stags. The tree he climbed stood in the middle of a large clearing, and near it was a path which led into the neighboring forest. Towards midnight he saw a lioness enter this open space, followed by a red lion, with a full-grown mane, who carried the carcass of an ox. Soon after they were followed by another lion, a lioness, and three cubs. The first lioness strolled from the path, and came and laid herself down at the foot of the oak, while the lion remained in the path, and seemed to be listening to some sound as yet inaudible to the hunter.
“Mohammed soon heard a distant roaring in the forest, and the lioness immediately answered it. Then the lion commenced to roar with a voice so loud that the frightened man let his gun fall, and held fast to the branch with both hands lest he should tumble from the tree.
“As the voice of the animal heard in the distancegradually approached, the lioness welcomed him with renewed roarings, and the lion, restless, went and came from the path to her, as if he wished her to keep silence, and then, from the lioness to the path again, as if to say, ‘Let the vagabond come; he will meet his match.’
“In about an hour, a large lion as black as a wild boar stepped out of the forest and stood on the edge of the clearing in the full moonlight. The lioness raised herself up to go to him, but the lion anticipating her intention, rushed before her, and marched straight towards his adversary. With measured steps and slow they approached to within a dozen paces of each other; their great heads high in air, their tails slowly sweeping down the grass that grew around them. They crouched to the earth; a moment’s pause, and then they bounded with a roar high in air, and rolled upon the ground, locked in their last embrace.
“Their struggle was long and fearful to the involuntary witness of this midnight duel. The bones of the combatants cracked under their powerful jaws, their talons strewed the grass with entrails, and painted it red with blood, and their roarings, now guttural, now sharp and loud, told of their rage and agony.
“At the beginning of the conflict the lioness crouched low, with her eyes fixed on the gladiators, and all the while the battle raged, manifested, by the slow, cat-like motion of her tail, the pleasure she felt at the spectacle. When the scene closed, and all was still and quiet in the moonlit glade, she cautiously approached the spot, and snuffling at the bodies of her two lovers, walked leisurelyaway, without deigning to notice the gross but appropriate epithet Mohammed sent after her, instead of a bullet, as she went off.”
This otherwise excellent sketch loses something of itsvraisemblancefrom carelessness and inaccuracy in execution, and also from an unfortunate style, which gives to most French narratives of this kind, however true, the air of romances. Gérard knew that a doe is never accompanied for any length of time by several stags, and there can be no excuse for making a lion range the woods with an ox in his mouth.
When cubs are about two months old, they begin to forage in the vicinity of their lair. This hunting, however, is more than half play, for they are sprightly little creatures whose gambols and infantile familiarities soon become distasteful to the grave and morose nature of their father. The lion then takes up his quarters out of their reach, but at the same time near enough to come to the assistance of his family if aid should be needed. Two cubs as a rule are born together, and one of these is generally a male. If the birth be single, this is said to be invariably the case, so that the fact that males considerably outnumber females is accounted for, and with it both the wantonness of the latter, and those trials to which their consorts are exposed. The race maintains its place by the sacrifice of its weaker numbers. The strongest whelps and most powerful lions live, mate, and kill or dispossess their rivals. Sexual selection on the lionesses’ part aids this process, and the result is, as everywhere and always, that the fittest survive, and transmit theirtraits with a result which is in every way beneficial to the species.
A great many young ones die while cutting their teeth. If this has been accomplished safely, however, their education begins immediately after that event.
A lion does not reach maturity until the eighth year, and he lives to be about forty. At the end of his second year, however, the animal has attained considerable size, strength, and agility, while his predatory tendencies are then more freely indulged than at any subsequent period of life. Up to the time at which mutual indifference separates parents and offspring, the latter have been directed and assisted in all things. Game has been found for them, and methods of capture and killing have been illustrated. Thus far experience has brought with it only assurances of success. They have been incited to take life for practice, encouraged to act when there was no necessity for acting, guarded from the consequences of temerity and incapacity. Therefore, when separation takes place and they go forth alone, it is with an undue self-confidence which often entails disaster. Young lions are notoriously daring, destructive, and dangerous.
There are many dogmatic and differing decisions with regard to the manner in which lions seize, kill, and eat their victims, as also in respect to the degree in which their natural ferocity may be tempered by fear or discretion. There must be, of course, a family likeness among them in these particulars, but no such uniformity as has been imagined can be found in their behavior when a wide enough view is taken.
The fanciful opinion that a lion disdains to eat game that he has not stricken himself, vanishes at once. Derogatory to his dignity as it may be, the fact is that he will consume anything he finds dead, that his taste is of the most indiscriminate character, and that he is very frequently a foul feeder. “Many instances,” says Andersson (“The Lion and the Elephant”), “have come to my knowledge which show that when half famished he will not only greedily devour the leavings of other beasts, but even condescend to carrion.” In another work (“Lake N’gami”) the same author states that lions eat carrion without being “half famished.” Sir Samuel Baker (“Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia”) saw several that he knew were not pressed by hunger feeding on the putrid body of a buffalo shot by himself, and Gérard (“Journal des Chasseurs”) very nearly lost his life by a lioness who had come to feed upon the carcass of a horse in the last stages of decomposition. Lions appropriate any meat they may happen to find. “I have frequently discovered them feasting on quadrupeds that had fallen before my rifle,” remarks Colonel Cumming (“A Hunter’s Life in Africa”). Major Leveson (“Sport in Many Lands”), W. H. Drummond (“The Large Game and Natural History of Southern Africa”), Colonel Delgorgue, (“Voyage dans l’Afrique Australe”), Sir W. C. Harris, (“Wild Sports in Southern Africa”), and H. C. Selous (“A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa”), all confirm the assertion that “lions are by no means too proud to eat game killed by others.” This charge must be admitted, and it is entirely conformable with another; namely, that his majesty is one of thelaziest beings alive. “Laziness, assurance, and boldness,” says Gérard, are his most conspicuous traits of character, and Moffat (“Missionary Labors and Scenes in South Africa”) adds gluttony to the list. He was “taken aback,” he assures us, by the astonishing feats in the way of gormandizing that this animal performed. It should be remembered, however, that an average beast of prey passes a life divided into alternate periods of famine and repletion, and that it is, both from habit and conformation, capable of cramming itself in a manner which almost exceeds belief.
There is hardly need to cite authorities upon the act of seizing prey, because lions do so in all those ways that different observers have severally decided to be peculiar to this beast; and it is the same with the various methods by which they kill. The whole subject of attack, whether upon man or beast, is wrapped in a mass of positive contradictions.
In India troops of lions have been known to divide themselves into sections that relieved one another at short intervals in the actual pursuit of game. As a rule, however, species belonging to this group do not, and can not, really run down prey. Their peculiar structure, adapted to bounding, climbing, and brief rushes, does not admit of a long gallop. Their limbs are too massive and short, and are not sufficiently detached from the body to give them free play. Lions have been called “the most cat-like of all cats,” and for the most part these animals ambush or stalk those creatures which they kill.
When a lion impelled by hunger leaves his lair, he sometimeshas a definite object in view, but more frequently goes forth to take advantage of anything that may turn up. If the former is the case, his course is directed, as that of a man would be in like circumstances, by a previous acquaintance with the haunts and habits of the game he is after. He does not ambush a disused path to a dried-up spring, or look for a quagga in a buffalo wallow, or attempt to stalk black antelopes in the same way that he would approach cattle belonging to some Hottentot kraal.
In Africa, which is his true home, a lion “is never known to chase prey.” Having sighted it, ascertained its species, surveyed the ground, found out the direction of the wind,—preliminaries essential to any subsequent attempts to get near,—he begins to practise a set of manœuvres adapted to present conditions, and these he has learned in the literal meaning of that term. Faculty is transmitted. Knowledge is always acquired.
Having closed successfully and seized his prey, it is destroyed in a variety of ways. As a matter of fact immediate death does not invariably come to the relief of its sufferings, even in the case of those smaller creatures on which the lion preys. He does not wait, as Buffon supposed, until insensibility ensues before tearing them to pieces. Nor is it true, as Dr. Livingstone imagined, that Providence assuages the agonies of all animals thus caught, by bestowing upon theFelidæa propensity to shake their victims, and so produce a state of insensibility. How can a lion shake an ox or an eland, a horse, giraffe, buffalo, or young rhinoceros? Andersson tells us that he mistook the groans of a zebracarried past his camp by night for those of a human being, and went to the rescue. More than this, if the brute itself has any feeling about this matter,—and there is every reason to believe that it has,—all manifestations of pain heighten the pleasurable excitement it experiences in putting an animal to death. Cruelty is organized in its brain, and to a beast of prey, pity is about as possible as poetic inspiration. Love of bloodshed, exultation in carnage, immitigable ferocity, are ingrained in them all; and so far as a lion appreciates expressions of mental anguish and physical torture, they thrill his fierce spirit with a savage joy.
Gordon Cumming relates a story which shows what a human being may experience when in the clutches of a lion. His party had encamped, and “the Hottentots,” as he tells, “made their fire about fifty yards away, they, according to their custom, being satisfied with the shelter of a large bush. The evening passed away cheerfully. Soon after dark we heard elephants breaking trees in the forest across the river, and once or twice I strode away into the darkness, some distance from the fireside, to stand and listen to them. I little, at that time, dreamed of the imminent peril to which I was exposing my life, nor thought that a blood-thirsty, man-eating lion was crouching near, and watching his opportunity to spring into the kraal and consign one of us to a horrible death. About three hours after the sun went down I called to my men to come and take their coffee and supper, which was ready for them at my fire. After supper three of them returned before their comrades to their own fireside, and lay down; these were John Stofolus, Hendric, and Ruyter. In a few momentsan ox came out by the gate of the kraal and walked round the back of it. Hendric and Ruyter lay on one side of the fire, under a blanket, and Stofolus lay on the other. At this moment I was sitting, taking some barley broth; our fire was very small, and the night was pitch dark and windy.
“Suddenly the appalling and murderous voice of an angry and blood-thirsty lion burst upon my ear within a few yards of us, followed by the shrieking of the Hottentots. Again and again the murderous roar of attack was repeated. We heard John and Ruyter scream, ‘The lion! the lion!’ Still, for a few moments, we thought he was but chasing one of the dogs round the kraal. But the next instant Stofolus rushed into the midst of us almost speechless with fear and horror, his eyes bursting from their sockets, and shrieked out, ‘The lion! the lion! he has got Hendric; he dragged him away from the fire beside me. I struck him with burning brands upon the head, but he would not let go his hold. Hendric is dead! O God! Hendric is dead! Let us take fire and seek him!’ The rest of my people rushed about, yelling as if they were mad. I was angry with them for their folly, and told them if they did not stand still and be quiet, the lions would have another of us, for very likely there was a troop of them. Then I ordered the dogs, which were nearly all tied, to be loosed, and the fire increased as far as it could be. I shouted Hendric’s name, but all was still. I told my men that Hendric was dead, and that a regiment of soldiers could not help him then. Hunting my dogs forward, I had everything brought within the kraal, whenwe lighted our fire, and closed the entrance as well as we could.
“My terrified people sat around the fire with guns in their hands, fancying at every moment that the lion would return and spring into the midst of us. When the dogs were first let go, the stupid brutes, as dogs often prove to be when most needed, instead of going at the lion, rushed fiercely at one another and fought desperately for some minutes. After this they got his wind, and going at him, disclosed his position. They kept up a continual barking until day dawned, the lion occasionally springing at them and driving them in upon the kraal. This horrible monster lay all night within forty yards of us, consuming the wretched man he had chosen for his prey. He had dragged him into a little hollow at the back of the thick bush beside which the fire was kindled, and there he remained until day broke, careless of our proximity.
“It appeared that when the unfortunate Hendric rose to drive in the ox, the lion watched him to his fireside, and he had scarcely lain down before the brute sprang upon him and Ruyter (for both were under one blanket) with his appalling roar; and, roaring as he lay, grappled him with his fearful claws, and kept biting the poor man’s chest and shoulder, all the while feeling for his neck, having got hold of which, he dragged him away backward round the brush into the dense shade.
“As the lion lay upon him he faintly cried, ‘Help me! Help me! Oh God! men, help me!’”
Here was no instinctive fear of man, no sign of the timidity so much talked about, no falling off of the victiminto the dreamy languor Dr. Livingstone expatiates upon. His pain was sooner over than that of some we know of; death came when the neck was crushed, but what had he suffered previously?
There is an alleged trait of character which should be alluded to on account of the propensity displayed even by those who really know this animal to make a composite being of him—part lion and part gentleman.
Gérard is one of them. He was to some extent, no doubt, deceived by common report, and likewise misled by his knowledge of those domestic virtues that really belong to the animal. At all events he constructed a lion that bears a curious resemblance to araffinéof the famous old duelling days in France without theseigneur’slevity or his lewdness. When his family, whom he has up to this time fed himself, are able to join in the chase, the lion finds the game, strikes it down, and then, with that refined self-abnegation which comports so well with his natural character, he retires to a little distance from the quarry in order thatMadamemay be first served. This and much more to the same effect.
It happens, however, that one man, and only one to the writer’s knowledge, the Hon. W. H. Drummond, chanced to see what Gérard has depicted in colors furnished by his own fancy. His narrative of the incident from first to last is much more in accordance with the style of manners taught in the struggle for existence than the former one. One day while watching the motions of some antelopes from the summit of a grassy and rock-strewn ridge, Drummond suddenly became aware that he was not the onlyhunter interested in the game of that vicinity. A lioness with her whelps crouched among the herbage at a little distance, and so intent were they upon the movements of their expected prey, that he was entirely unnoticed. While awaiting events a band of quaggas passed close to some bushes at the foot of the slope, and then a lion’s form was launched upon the leading stallion, and he fell dead from a blow with the beast’s forearm.
Without any delay the lion proceeded to help himself, his family drawing near, but waiting until his appetite had been stayed. “The sultan of the desert” has a short temper when he is feeding, and on many occasions has been known to eat his wife, either in the way of reproof to her importunity at such times, or because he did not have food enough. It would seem that this lioness suspected something of the kind might occur, for she kept herself and the young ones in the background until his highness had finished, which he, not being particularly hungry, did very soon. When he had walked away and stretched himself out, the rest pressed forward, and the mother treated her offspring with scant curtesy. She pounced upon those parts she preferred, and boxed the little ones, who were struggling for a bite, out of the way whenever they incommoded her.
Thus far in the catalogue of leonine gifts and graces we have not discovered any that are peculiarly their own; on the contrary, when examined closely, those with which lions are accredited turn out to be counterfeits. Gordon Cumming says of the lion, in company with his mate and whelps, that, “at this time he knows no fear,” and in defenceof his family “he will face a thousand men.” This is a rhetorical flourish, and yet now when it has become the fashion to call the creature a poltroon, the statement as it stands is better supported by proof than almost any other that has been made concerning its character. If this animal is not brave, nobody is in a position to call it cowardly. All the evidence tends the other way. Taken as it is, looked upon as a brute to whom heroism, sentiment, and high resolve must be as impossible as righteousness, the lion preserves the demeanor of courage better than any other member of theFelidæ.
Moffat, Lichtenstein, Freeman, Rath, Galton, say with W. C. Kerr (“The Far Interior”) that “when a lion is thoroughly hungry there is no limit to his audacity and daring.” Every being must havesomeincitement to action, and those motives which are most powerful with lions appear to be anger and appetite.
Postponing for the moment his relations with mankind, let us see what kinds of game the lion is accustomed to prey upon. No coercion can be exercised in this direction. Actual starvation might take away liberty of choice, but, as a rule, it must be admitted that a selection of this kind is significant of the opinion which an animal has of its own powers, as it also is of its boldness. The giraffe, which lions occasionally kill, is entirely defenceless: so with elands and all antelopes. This is likewise the case with those domestic animals which are devoured. It has been said that the elephant is sometimes attacked, but this is one of those stories which only display the ignorance of those who propagate them. The black and whiterhinoceros is never assailed, although Delgorgue actually refers to the latter, a beast second only to the elephant in size and most formidably armed, as if it were commonly destroyed. “Maintes fois trouvai-je des rhinocéros de la plus haute taille, que ni leur poids, ni leur force, ni leur fureur, n’avaient pu préserver de la mort.” If anything were needed to set off this pleasant statement, it could be found in Delgorgue’s roundly declared opinion that lions are all “abject cowards.”
But in Africa the lion constantly preys upon the buffalo, and without going so far as Andersson in saying that he principally lives on this species, the fact that it is continually killed is beyond question. Many famous hunters suppose that an African buffalo is the most dangerous creature to be found on the “Dark Continent.” It is of immense size and strength, active, brave, and fierce.
No account is known to the writer of a single lion that was seen to slay a full-grown buffalo, and several authorities doubt whether this be possible. The latter have, however, often been shot while bearing the scars of combats with one or more lions. According to the evidence as it exists, the case stands in this way. One lion may attack a buffalo, it is impossible to say whether he will or not; two of them certainly do so, and the battles that ensue are of the most desperate description. It is known, also, that these conflicts do not always end in favor of the assailants.
“The lion kills only for food,” says Major Leveson, meaning that in mature life he does not commit useless murders, or show the same love of blood for its own sakeas some other members of his family. Without doubt, this animal is not sanguinary when compared with a panther or puma, but it is quite as likely that he is restrained from unnecessary carnage by economic views, as by any sentiment of generosity or mercy.
A lion when surprised does not usually dash away incontinently; if his retreat is not interfered with, and he has learned that firearms are more effective than his own weapons of offence, he falls back slowly. When so placed that they cannot escape, some lions die like curs, but the majority of accounts represent them as perishing gallantly. Such is the case also when for any reason the creature has resolved to fight. Then it seems to make no difference to him how many foes he encounters. Numerous narratives very similar in detail have been written by different observers of such scenes. No other wild beast confronts a body of armed men after his manner. That last parade in face of a horde of savages beneath whose assagais he is about to die, is so striking that false inferences from the sight can scarcely be avoided. It is not the “deliberate valor” of Milton we see, nor even heroic despair; it is nothing perhaps with which humanity in its nobler emotions can sympathize; but it looks as if it were, and men have yielded to their feelings and believed that it was. “Life,” says Professor Robinson, “has but one end for a lion—enjoyment. He is incapable of forgetting that he is only a huge cat, or flying in the face of nature by pretending to be anything else.... He makes no claim to invincible courage; on the contrary, he prefers, as a rule, to enjoy life rather than to die heroically. But when deathis inevitable, he is always heroic, or even when danger presses him too closely ... a lion in the shadow of death remains a lion still.”
All things being equal, lions conduct themselves towards mankind according to the suggestions of the time being and their previous experiences. One that had just eaten an antelope might pass by a man; another might kill him. The former, by all accounts, is the more likely to occur, and it is said that Bushmen and other natives can tell by the voice whether he is full or fasting; and in the first case have no fear that he will become aggressive without provocation. When forbearance is not a matter of repletion, it is no doubt, in some measure, the result of sloth. A lion never does anything he can avoid doing.
Baker’s story of the lion that met a Nubian sheik with two companions, and tore the leader to pieces, is one of a great number of instances that might be brought forward to show that wherever these animals are not conscious of being put entirely at a disadvantage by superiority of arms, they display little of that fear of man which is commonly attributed to them. Poorly-armed tribes are under no such delusion. The Ouled Meloul, or Ouled Cassi Arabs whosedouarswere attacked would have been as difficult to persuade of the lion’s timidity towards mankind, as those Makubas on the Ghobe, or “the miserable Bakorus,” whom he devoured at his good pleasure. Dr. Schweinfurth (“The Heart of Africa”) was at an Egyptian garrison where the soldiers were carried off from within their own lines night after night. Moffat, Delgorgue, Livingstone, Cumming, all record incidents of what they call his “desperateattacks.” Still, and as if to show what it is possible for men to commit themselves to when writing about wild beasts, we have Burchell’s opinion (“Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa”).
This author, according to his own account, spent four years in a lion country, and saw but one during the whole of this time. That one was accidentally encountered on a journey, and they succeeded in shooting it through the body, upon which it drew off into the bushes and disappeared. Yet it is on the strength of an experience like this that Burchell says he has “no very high opinion of the lion’s courage.” Of course the reference has an appearance of being overstated, but whoever reads the bulky quartos in which these travels are written will find that such is not the case.
So much in the way of a review of Buffon’s general description.
It is easier, however, and safer to decide as to what lions are not, than to say what they are. Almost everything written upon this subject deals nearly to exclusion with the animal’s habits, and leaves its character untouched. Even in this respect also our information is not complete.
C. J. Andersson (“The Lion and the Elephant”) remarks that “the modes of life” belonging to “the Lord of the African Wilds” are not at all thoroughly known, and he expresses an opinion fully justified by facts to the effect that he has himself been able to bring together much information in this connection that “may not have been noticed by other travellers and sportsmen.”In making up a summary of what has gone before, the writer is much indebted to this valuable work.
We have no psychological scheme for lions, and must take their characteristics as they happen to present themselves, without any pretence at arrangement, based either upon their natural order or real importance. There is an account given in MS. to Lloyd, the editor of Andersson’s posthumous papers, that shows the character of the Indian lion in much the same light that his African congener has been placed by Baker, Drummond, etc.
“This beast was believed to have his lair in a patch of copse-wood where, from the jungle having been some years previously cut away by the natives for stakes and the like, the young trees had grown up again so close and tangled as to be almost impenetrable. But this patch was of no great extent, its area, perhaps, not exceeding that of Grosvenor Square. The other parts of the wood surrounding the tank were in a state of nature, consisting of bushes and timber trees.
“On reaching the ground, the natives were stationed in the trees thereabouts as markers. But it was not till the party had beaten the patch with their elephants for a considerable time that the lion was discovered to be on foot, and some further time elapsed before he was viewed as he was stealing away from the brake, along a sort of hedge-row, for the more open country beyond. Captain Delamaine, who was some forty or fifty paces from the beast, then fired, and wounded him severely in the body.
“On receiving the ball, the lion immediately faced about, and charged my elephant, but the nerves ofthe latter having been recently shaken by wounds received from a royal tiger, turned tail, and regularly bolted. In the scurry through the jungle, one of the guns, having been caught by a tree, fell from the howdah and was broken, a loss, as the sequel proved, that might have been attended with very disastrous consequences.”
But the lion soon gave up the chase, and retraced his steps to the patch whence he had been started. Here he was followed by Captain Harris alone, Delamaine’s elephant, from its late fright, having become too unsteady to be taken into thick cover.
“The Captain soon found and fired at the beast, which in its turn instantly sprang at, and made a fair lodgment on the head of his elephant, but the latter being a large and powerful animal, and accustomed to thechasse, almost immediately shook off its fierce assailant, who fell with violence on the ground.” This desperate mode of attack and reprisal was on both sides repeated in more than one instance, and this, moreover, within view of his companion, who, though prevented—for the reason mentioned—from taking part in the conflict, was, from the outside of the brake, intently watching the proceedings of his friend. After a time, whether because he left the patch, or from having concealed himself, the beast was no longer to be found.
“It was at the period of the monsoon, and just as the hunters were at fault, there came on a heavy shower of rain, when, principally for the sake of the guns, it was deemed best to retire for shelter to some trees in the more open country at a few hundred paces distance.
“The storm soon passed over, but being doubtful whether their guns might not be wet, it was thought advisable to discharge them. This was no sooner done, however, than the lion began to roar terribly, and continued doing so for some time, in the direction of the late scene of conflict, from which it was pretty evident, that, though they had been unable to find him in the patch, he had been harbored there the whole time.
“When reloaded, the party therefore returned to the brake, and were informed by one of the markers that on the report of the guns, the lion had rushed roaring from it into the more open country, evidently for the purpose of venting his rage on the first object that came across his path. On proceeding a little further they were hailed by another marker, who told them that the brute was crouched in a cluster of brambles, of a very limited extent, about twenty paces from the very tree in which he himself was perched.
“As the country was pretty open around the thicket in question, the sportsmen were able to reconnoitre it narrowly, and that without taking the elephants into the very thick of it, which was deemed unadvisable, as, had those animals come directly upon the lion, they might have been scared and rendered unmanageable. But the beast was not perceptible.
“From the cover being so limited in extent, it appeared to be almost an impossibility that the lion could be there, the rather that the elephants, so remarkable for their fine sense of smell, did not seem at all aware of his presence,and it was in consequence imagined that the man must be mistaken. But as he persisted in his story, it was determined to fire a shot into the thicket, which was accordingly done, though without any result.
“When a lion, that has been wounded and hotly pursued, has ‘lain up,’ or hidden himself, for a time, his position is generally known by his roaring, panting, or hard breathing; but in this instance there were no indications of the kind, which, coupled with the shot having failed of effect, confirmed their previous impression, and they were, therefore, on the point of moving off elsewhere.
“But as the marker continued asseverating from his tree that the brute was positively lying in the very brake near which they were standing, it was resolved to try another shot, which was fired by Captain Harris’ man, who was seated at the back of his master’s howdah.
“This had the desired effect, for the gun was hardly discharged, when the lion, with a tremendous roar, sprang up from his lurking-place, and in a second was once more on the head of Captain Harris’ elephant. But he was almost immediately shaken off, when he retreated to the same brake from which he had issued, and where, as before, he was no longer discernible.
“A shot was therefore directed towards the spot where he was supposed to be, and he again charged the Captain’s elephant, and on being dislodged trotted off towards the patch that harbored him in the first instance.
“During themêléejust described, Captain Delamaine, from an apprehension of hitting some one, had been deterred from firing; but as the lion was retreating he dischargedboth barrels of his double gun, and broke one of the hind legs of the beast.
“Upon receiving this wound the lion at once turned, and rushing at the elephant, sprang up on his hind quarters and fixed his fangs in the thick part of the tail. The poor animal perfectly screamed from the extreme torture, which was little to be wondered at, as this unfortunate appendage had only a week previously been severely lacerated by a huge tiger. The elephant now swayed to and fro to such a degree that his rider had some difficulty in retaining his seat in the howdah, and was much less able to take an accurate aim at the lion, which, screened as it was by the protruding rump of the elephant, would have been scarcely practicable. The Captain, besides, had only one barrel remaining, and it therefore behooved him to be most cautious that his last charge was not ineffectually expended.
“This trying scene continued for two or three minutes, during which Delamaine anxiously looked out for Captain Harris. But unluckily his elephant had been rendered unmanageable by the maltreatment it had itself received from the lion, and it was not, therefore, in his power to render aid to his friend.”
The appearance of the lion at this time, maddened as he was with pain and rage, is described as most awful.
“At length the beast’s long-continued attack on the elephant caused the poor animal evidently to give way and to sink behind, and had the affair continued a short time longer, there is no doubt it would have been on its haunches, and the rider at the mercy of the fierce assailant.
“Finding matters in this very critical state, it became necessary for him to risk everything. Leaning, therefore, over the back of the howdah, and clinging to it with one hand, he with the other discharged his rifle, a very heavy one, at the head of the lion (the piece at the time oscillating, or swinging, in a manner corresponding with the roll of the elephant), and as luck would have it, the ball, after crashing through the beast’s jawbone, subsequently traversed the whole length of its body.
“This caused the lion to let go his hold, and for a few seconds he appeared to be partially paralyzed, but recovering himself, he slowly retreated towards the thicker cover.”
Subsequently he was again attacked by the party, and in two or three instances charged them as gallantly as ever; but as he was always received with a heavy fire, an end was at length put to his existence.
There is no need to add much to what has been said of the effect produced by inherited and personal experience. Nobody denies that lions are possessed of intelligence, and this being the case, they learn to avoid known dangers, and to take advantage of those conditions which have previously proved favorable. If this and what it implies were not true, there could be but one reason for it, which is that the race was congenitally idiotic. Therefore to dispute about the lion’s courage as if there might be archetypal beasts differently endowed from those representatives of their species which naturally, and of necessity, vary in boldness with changing environments, appears to be a waste of time. Furthermore, the possession of power of any kind to a great degree determines its exercise, and it isimpossible to suppose that an animal which, above all others, except the tiger, is specialized for violence, will not be blood-thirsty and aggressive.
Sir Samuel Baker appears to be the only writer, really an authority, who knows nothing authentic and has no personal cognizance of the forays of lions upon villages and camps. Delgorgue, Harris, Cumming, Andersson, and everybody else whose opportunities for observation have been at all extensive, recognize such incidents as perfectly well established. Indeed, taking the character of this beast and its situation into consideration, the only thing surprising about the matter would be that it had not done those things upon whose reality Baker seems to cast a doubt. Drummond relates a story in this connection, in the scenes of which he was himself an actor, and as many of those traits which have been discussed are well brought out in his narrative, it is given in full.
“In two cases I have been an accessory to the death of well-known man-eaters, one of which had almost depopulated a district.... The locality in which this one committed his depredations was in the northeast corner of Zululand, where a number of refugee Amaswazi had been located, and when I arrived they had continued for nearly a year, so that many villages were deserted, and all had more or less suffered; for the brute did not confine himself to any one in particular, nor come at any regular intervals, but so timed his visits that no one was sure of his or her life from day to day. No fastenings were of any use against him, as his immense strength enabled him to force an entrance if he could not find one ready made,while the outer ring-fence, of interwoven thorns, supported by strong posts, which guards all native villages, and is often of great height, offered no obstacle to his powers of jumping, a single bound being always sufficient to land him inside.
“He usually confined himself to killing a single individual, and would claw one out from under the blanket or skin under which, with covered heads, they cowered in terror on his arrival; but on the two or three occasions in which he had met with opposition, and when he had been wounded with assagais, he had killed every soul in the hut, and so dreadfully mangled them that their bodies almost defied recognition.
“I was staying at the villages for some weeks, first at one and then at another, as they suited the position of the game, or where I happened to find myself at night; but though I heard of the lion having attacked one either just before or just after I had been there, I never happened to meet it, and the ignorant natives became anxious for my presence, saying that their enemy feared to go where I was.
“This, however, was not destined to last. One sultry evening I arrived at the outermost village, having been forced to leave the spoor of a herd of elephants for want of ammunition, and being very tired, I determined to sleep at it, sending on two of my men to fetch some from the place which I made my headquarters. Tired as I was with my exertions on an unusually hot day, I soon fell asleep in the hut that had been given up to our use; but, as the heat was stifling, I was not at all surprised at being awakenedtowards midnight by a heavy thunderstorm, which crashed round us for half an hour or more. At last the hush came that always accompanies the tremendous rain which follows, and seems to quench such storms, broken only by the heavy splashing of big drops, and the gurgle of the water that flooded the ground, and I should soon have been asleep again had not a drop come splash into my face through the ill-thatched roof, almost immediately followed by a small stream, of which it had been the advanced guard. This necessitated my looking out for a drier spot, when suddenly out of the quiet of the descending rain, came such a confused clamor of shrieks and cries, of yelling and moaning, that until I heard the voice of the lion, I was utterly unable to account for it. This lasted for full half a minute, and then such a blood-curdling scream of mingled pain and despair came as I hope I may never hear again, and which haunted my dreams for many a month after.
“My men, and among them two old hunters, each of whom had killed several lions, shrunk crouching back to the further end of the hut, returning no answer to my words when I told them to come out with me and face the beast, though, as I opened the hut entrance, and looked out on the pitch darkness, it was evident how useless any such attempt would be. The death-yell we had heard was followed by silence for some time, during which the brute was probably departing with its victim, and the natives were still afraid of its return; then the usual noisy lamentations for the dead broke forth, and were continued without intermission until daylight, though I was so tired that,without expecting it, I fell asleep again, and did not wake any more that night.
“There was little to tell when morning did break. The lion had hit upon the most crowded hut of all, the one in which the people who had given place to us were sleeping in addition to its regular owners, and had picked out a young married woman, taking her from among several, without injuring any one else; as they said—‘a man does not stab more than one of his herd of cattle when he is hungry.’
“Previous to this, on my first arrival, the head man of the district had come and asked me whether I would assist him to destroy this brute, as, if so, he would turn out with all his people, and beat up the country until it was found; and in point of fact we had already done this, on the occasion of the chief’s uncle having been carried off; but the ground was so dry and hard then that our best spoorers failed to hit off the track. To-day, however, as the rain had ceased a few minutes after its departure, there could be no doubt about finding it, and as soon as I awoke I sent off to the chief to ask him to come with his men, saying that, whether he had arrived or not, I should take up the trail at nine o’clock.
“I did not at this time know that the woman who was the last victim was his relation, but when my messenger came back and told me so, adding that the chief was fearfully angry, it did not surprise me to hear that runners had been sent out already, and that he had threatened to drive out of the country any one old enough to carry a spear who remained behind, and that if I could wait until the sun hadreached a certain part of the heavens (till about ten o’clock), he would join me.
“I had already had breakfast when this news came, and to save time I took a hunter and a spoorer (tracker) with me and followed the lion. About two hundred yards off we found the spot where he had made his disgusting meal, and then the track led right away towards a stream, nearly a mile distant, where he had quenched his thirst. Keeping steadily on, he passed through several covers quite strong enough to have held him, and through which we had to pass with the utmost caution, until, at length, he came out on to the open, and headed in a direction that we knew could lead nowhere but to the Umbeka bush, the thickest jungle for miles around. As this was still nearly four miles off, I sent one man back to tell the people where to come to, and kept on with the hunter.
“On reaching the jungle, which covered the entire side of a hill, and was stony and broken to the last degree, besides having its undergrowth formed of impenetrable cactus, we did not of course attempt to enter, but separating, walked round it, the upper and more rugged portion falling to my share, and carefully examined every inch of the ground to see whether by any chance he had again left it; however, no vestige of his spoor could be seen, and by the time we got back to our starting-point, the whole of Tekwane’s people were in sight.
“The chief himself was with them, though he had no intention of taking any active part in the proceedings, and when we started he retired with some of his old men to a place of safety, and a council of how to proceed was heldon the spot. My idea was that the guns should guard the more likely passes, while the people, numbering near five hundred, should beat out the jungle. To this, however, the objection was offered, that from the well-known thickness of the place, and the universal terror of the lion, the men would not attempt to beat it unless they were led by myself and my hunters. Such being the case, it was decided that spies should be placed in the tree-tops and other commanding positions, while the great body of the people were to enter at the top and drive down; but knowing as I did how very dangerous the affair would become if the lion was wounded in such cover, in many parts of which one could not see a yard off, I specially ordered my men not to fire unless they felt sure of killing or disabling the brute on the spot, and advised that every one, advancing in as unbroken a line as possible, and going slowly and making all the noise possible, should try and make it slink off before them, and enable us in the end to get a fair chance at it in the open.
“Half an hour was spent in waiting for the spies to take up their positions, and then the whole body, chanting a hunting song so loudly that it could have been heard miles off, and must undoubtedly have broken the slumbers of the lion, marched up to the top, and spreading out, so as to take in all but the outskirts, where it was improbable that he would be, they entered the jungle shouting at the top of their voices, partly, no doubt, in obedience to my wishes, but quite as much to keep their own courage up. In this fashion, and amid cries of ‘Get up! Get out, you dog! Where’s the dog?’ to which they trusted a gooddeal as likely to intimidate the lion, we passed right through to the other side, and though the ground had been beaten quite as well as it was possible for anything smaller than elephants to do, no vestige of the animal had been seen.
“Hardly, however, had the men begun to cluster out upon the open, before there was a shouting from the extreme left, which, when passed on through the stragglers, soon resolved itself into the lion having been seen there. Of course there was a general rush in that direction, which I accompanied, until I met a man who had come from the spot, and who said the brute had just showed itself and turned back. On hearing this I stopped those nearest to me and sent them to collect every one they could find, and in a few minutes two-thirds of the people had come around me. I then divided them into two bodies; the larger, led by all my hunters, except one, who remained with me, I sent to enter the jungle on the outer side and to beat through it, shouting and firing their guns; the other I took myself down to a stream which, at four or five hundred yards distance, fronted the spot where the lion had shown himself, and made them lie down in the bushes that lined it. About fifty men I stationed round the jungle, telling them never to cease making a noise, and I also removed the spies from in front of us.
“It took a long time to do this, and longer for the men to begin to beat, and we waited for an hour by the stream bank before anything happened. I had left my place and gone to drink, and as I turned to come back, a stir and rustle among the bushes where the men lay concealedmade me think something must be in sight, and as soon as I got back, the man next me said, ‘There he is!’ and I caught sight of the lion standing under the shade of a solitary tree outside of the jungle, with his head turned in the direction of the beaters, evidently uncertain whether to await them where he was, or to take to flight. At last, doubtless considering that this was a different phase of the human character from the one he was accustomed to meet with during his midnight maraudings, he turned tail, and coming towards us in long easy bounds, was soon within a hundred yards of those concealed furthest down. Most fortunately I had told them all not to show themselves on any account before I did so myself, and so the brute, unsuspicious of danger, made for a ford near to which the hunter who had come down with me had stationed himself. At sixty yards he fired and rolled the animal over like a rabbit, it performing a complete somersault before it regained its legs; up the whole line jumped with a yell, and the lion, which I had first fancied was killed, continued his course the same as before, only, perhaps, rather stupefied by the shot, he abandoned the ford, and ran parallel to the stream, taking no notice of the people, many of whom shrank back as they saw him approaching their part of the line. I began to cover him when he was still two hundred yards off, and I think I kept the gun up too long, for when I fired at half that distance I missed clean. I made a better shot with my other barrel, rather too far forward, but just catching the point of the shoulder, and of course putting the limbhors de combat.The brute appeared to be as cowardly by daylight as he was daring inthe dark, for instead of charging he bolted under a small tree and lay down growling, and in ten minutes all who were coming—and three-fourths of the men did so—had made their appearance, and were formed in a compact body behind me. He had not waited all this time very patiently; but when I fancied that I saw symptoms of his having a desire to slink away out of reach of the fast-arriving relatives of his victims, I had all the dogs set at him, and though only a few would go, and they could not have hampered his escape, yet they distracted his attention for a time.
“Our plan was a very simple one. The five hunters and myself were to walk up as close as we dared, and fire in volleys of three, and if we did not kill, and he charged, we were to bolt behind the natives for shelter. We walked up within thirty yards, and I and two hunters stood up while three knelt in front of us and fired, the lion growling furiously the while, but not attempting to move. The moment, however, the balls struck him—and with a lion crouched flat as he was, it was not to be expected that they could kill him unless one hit the centre of his forehead—he came straight at us, roaring horribly. My two companions, hardly going through the form of taking aim, pulled their triggers and joined those who had already fired. Fortunately the lion could not spring with a broken shoulder, and though he looked most unutterably savage, he did not get over the ground very fast, so I took a steady shot at the centre of his big chest, fully expecting to see him tumble over, but could not even see that it had struck him; and as he was getting very near I did nottake a much better aim with the second barrel than the last two hunters had, and, like them, missed, turning as I did so, and running away for bare life. I was surprised to see how the men behind had diminished in numbers, but still there remained upwards of a hundred, who so far showed no sign of flinching, and I bolted in behind them and began to reload, altering my position when once the powder was down, so that I could see what was going on.