Eccentricities of the Animal Creation.

by John Timbs

The Lion has been styled "The King of the Forest," which is not very applicable to him, seeing that Mr. Burchell at least never met with but one Lion on the plains; nor did he ever meet with one in any of the forests where he had been. The low cover that creeps along the sides of streams, the patches that mark the springs in the rank grass of the valley, seem to be the shelter which the African Lion, for the most part, seeks. His strength is extraordinary. To carry off a man (and there are dismal accounts of this horrible fact, which there is no reason to doubt) appears a feat of no difficulty to this powerful brute. A Cape Lion, seizing a heifer in his mouth, has carried her off with the same ease as a cat does a rat; and has leaped with her over a broad dyke without the least difficulty. A young Lion, too, has conveyed a horse about a mile from the spot where he had killed it.

There seems to be an idea that the Lion preserves human prey; but, be this as it may, the inhabitants of certain districts have been under the necessity of resorting to a curious expedient to get out of the Lion's reach. Ælian, by the way, records the extinction of a Libyan people by an invasion of Lions. We read of a large tree, in the country of the Mantatees, which has amidst its limbs fourteen conical huts. These are used as dormitories, being beyond the reach of the Lions, which, since the incursions of the Mantatees, when so many thousands of persons were massacred, have become very numerous in the neighbourhood, and destructive to human life. The branches of the above trees are supported by forked sticks or poles, and there are three tiers or platforms on which the huts are constructed. The lowest is nine feet from the ground, and holds ten huts; the second, about eight feet high, has three huts; and the upper story, if it may be so called, contains four. The ascent to these is made by notches cut in the poles; the huts are built with twigs, and thatched with straw, and will contain two persons conveniently. This tree stands at the base of a range of mountains due east of Kurrichaine, in a place called "Ongorutcie Fountain," about 1,000 miles north-east of Cape Town. Kurrichaine is the Staffordshire as well as the Birmingham of that part of South Africa. There are likewise whole villages of huts erected on stakes, about eight feet from the ground; the inhabitants, it is stated, sit under the shade of these platforms during the day, and retire to the elevated huts at night.

Though mortal accidents frequently occur in Lion-hunting, the cool sportsman seldom fails of using his rifle with effect. Lions, when roused, it seems, walk off quietly at first, and if no cover is near, and they are not pursued, they gradually mend their pace to a trot, till they have reached a good distance, and then they bound away. Their demeanour is careless, as if they did not want a fray, but if pressed, are ready to fight it out. If they are pursued closely, they turn and crouch, generally with their faces to the adversary: then the nerves of the sportsman are tried. If he is collected, and master of his craft, the well-directed rifle ends the scene at once; but if, in the flutter of the moment, the vital parts are missed, or the ball passes by, leaving the Lion unhurt, the infuriated beast frequently charges on his enemies, dealing destruction around him. This, however, is not always the case; and a steady, unshrinking deportment has, in some instances, saved the life of the hunter.

There is hardly a book of African travels which does not teem with the dangers and hair-breadth escapes of the Lion-hunters; and hardly one that does not include a fatal issue to some engaged in this hazardous sport. The modes of destruction employed against the powerful beast are very various—from the poisonous arrow of the Bushman to the rifle of the colonist.

The Lion may be safely attacked while sleeping, because of the dullness of his sense of hearing, the difficulty of awakening him, and his want of presence of mind if he be so awakened. Thus the Bushmen of Africa are enabled to keep the country tolerably clear of Lions, without encountering any great danger. The bone of the Lion's fore-leg is of remarkable hardness, from its containing a greater quantity of phosphate of lime than is found in ordinary bones, so that it may resist the powerful contraction of the muscles. The texture of this bone is so compact that the substance will strike fire with steel. He has little sense of taste, his lingual or tongue-nerve not being larger than that of a middle-sized dog.

The true Lions belong to the Old World exclusively, and they were formerly widely and abundantly diffused; but at present they are confined to Asia and Africa, and they are becoming every day more and more scarce in those quarters of the globe. That Lions were once found in Europe there can be no doubt. Thus it is recorded by Herodotus that the baggage-camels of the army of Xerxes were attacked by Lions in the country of the Reonians and the Crestonæi on their march from Acanthus (near the peninsula of Mount Athos) to Therma, afterwards Thessalonica (now Saloniki); the camels alone, it is stated, were attacked, other beasts remaining untouched, as well as men. Pausanias copies the above story, and states, moreover, that Lions often descended into the plains at the foot of Olympus, which separate Macedonia from Thessaly, and that Polydamas, a celebrated athlete, slew one of the Lions, although he was unarmed.

Nor is Europe the only part of the world from which the form of the Lion has disappeared. Lions are no longer to be found in Egypt, Palestine, or Syria, where they once were evidently far from uncommon. The frequent allusions to the Lion in the Holy Scriptures, and the various Hebrew terms there used to distinguish the different ages and sex of the animal, prove a familiarity with the habits of the race. Even in Asia generally, with the exception of some countries between India and Persia and some districts of Arabia, these magnificent beasts have, as Cuvier observes, become comparatively rare, and this is not to be wondered at. To say nothing of the immense draughts on the race for the Roman arena,—and they were not inconsiderable, for, as Zimmerman has shown, there were 1,000 lions killed at Rome in the space of forty years,—population and civilization have gradually driven them within narrower limits, and their destruction has been rapidly worked in modern times, when firearms have been used against them instead of the bow and the spear. Sylla gave a combat of one hundred Lions at once in his ædileship; but this exhibition is insignificant when compared with those of Pompey and Cæsar, the former of whom exhibited a fight of six hundred, and the latter of four hundred Lions. In Pompey's show three hundred and fifteen of the six hundred were males. The early Emperors consumed great numbers, frequently a hundred at a time, to gratify the people.

The African Lion is annually retiring before the persecution of man farther and farther from the Cape. Mr. Bennett says of the Lion:—"His true country is Africa, in the vast and untrodden wilds of which, from the immense deserts of the north to the trackless forests of the south, he reigns supreme and uncontrolled. In the sandy deserts of Arabia, in some of the wild districts of Persia, and in the vast jungles of Hindostan, he still maintains a precarious footing; but from the classic soil of Greece, as well as from the whole of Asia Minor, both of which were once exposed to his ravages, he has been entirely dislodged and extirpated."

Niebuhr places Lions among the animals of Arabia; but their proper country is Africa, where their size is the largest, their numbers are greatest, and their rage more tremendous, being inflamed by the influence of a burning sun upon a most arid soil. Dr. Fryer says that those of India are feeble and cowardly. In the interior parts, amidst the scorched and desolate deserts of Zaara or Biledugerid, they reign the masters; they lord it over every beast, and their courage never meets with a check where the climate keeps mankind at a distance. The nearer they approach the habitations of the human race the less their rage, or rather the greater is their timidity: they have often had experienced unequal combats, and finding that there exists a being superior to themselves, commit their ravages with more caution; a cooler climate, again, has the same effect, but in the burning deserts, where rivers and springs are denied, they live in a perpetual fever, a sort of madness fatal to every animal they meet with.

The watchfulness and tenacity of the Lion for human prey are very extraordinary. Mr. Barrow relates that a Lion once pursued a Hottentot from a pool of water, where he was driving his cattle to drink, to an olive-tree, in which the man remained for twenty-four hours, while the Lion laid himself at the foot of the tree. The patience of the beast was at length worn out by his desire to drink, and while he satisfied his thirst the Hottentot fled to his house, about a mile off. The Lion, however, returned to the tree, and tracked the man within three hundred yards of his dwelling.