“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 same group, 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 unwelcome visitors 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.
THE LEOPARD AND PANTHER
Those conflicting opinions we have thus far seen expressed upon the habits and characters of wild beasts, are not replaced by any unanimity upon the part of those who have described leopards and panthers. They have a less voluminous literature than the lion or elephant, but their temper and traits are disputed about in every particular, and even the place they occupy in nature.
The only difference between a panther and a leopard is one of size; or as G. P. Sanderson (“Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts of India”) expresses it, the distinction is the same as that existing between a “horse and a pony.” Dr. Jerdon (“Mammals of India”) states that they are merely “varieties of Felis pardus,” and if the species-making mania were not so prevalent, one might wonder at men who constantly met with these creatures in Asia and Africa, and yet wrote about them as if they belonged to distinct groups, and had very little in common.
