One day, when the door had been left open, as the sow rushed rapidly up the street towards a greengrocer’s shop in the little market-place, where she was accustomed to rob, it happened that a young mulatto woman, whose legs had been paralysed for some years, and who gained her livelihood by begging, was crawling on her elbows and knees along the streets, coming down towards the Legation. She had never seen a pig in her life, so when she beheld a large black animal rushing frantically, as she supposed, to devour her, thought it was a ‘Jin[68].’
The shock was so great, that up she scrambled and ran off; the paralysis of her legs had ceased. This miracle performed by the sow was a source of wonder to all, especially to the Mohammedans, loth to believe that ‘Allah’ should make use of the unclean animal to heal the maimed. The next day the mulatto appeared at my gate, walking upright, to petition that I should give her compensation for the fright she had experienced, pleading also that the pig had deprived her of the means of gaining her livelihood, for she was now whole, and no one took pity and bestowed alms on her as before. I gave her only my blessing, for she was strong and young, and could work. The sow was presented by me to a gentleman in England, who wished to introduce a cross of the wild animal.
The sagacity of the boar is greater than that of most animals. A Moorish Sheikh dwelling in the mountains about forty miles from Tangier, brought as a gift to the Basha a full-grown boar, that had been caught when only two months old. The animal had become very tame; it was brought tied on the back of a pack mule.
A few days after presentation the Basha’s sons carried the boar out into the country and let it loose, slipping greyhounds to give chase. The boar knocked over the hounds, charged and ripped two horses, and got away. Next morning it was found feeding quietly in the yard of its master’s house, forty miles off! I was glad to learn that the owner, on hearing how his pet had been treated by the Basha’s sons, kept the animal until it died.
In the present century lions have rarely been seen in the Northern province of Morocco.
During a residence of many years I have only heard of two having been seen in the woods between Tangier and Cape Spartel. I cannot account for these lions having wandered so far from the Atlas Mountains—where they are still to be found—except, as the Moors of those regions relate, that when the winter has been unusually cold and snow has fallen heavily, the wild animals which dwell in the higher parts of the Atlas descend to the valleys and plains. Should a thaw suddenly set in, and rivers and brooks become swollen, the lions and other wild animals which seek to return to the mountains are prevented repassing the rapid streams, and stray away from the district, seeking for forest or for an uninhabited country, and, moving along the chain of hills to the northward, reach the district of Spartel—which is about seven miles square—bounded on the western side by the Atlantic and on the northern by the Straits of Gibraltar.
Early one morning I had a visit from several inhabitants of the village of ‘Jamah Makra,’ not far from the site of my present villa ‘Ravensrock,’ which stands on a hill, three miles out of Tangier, surrounded by woods. The men came to request that I should assemble my hunters and sally out in pursuit of a wild animal which, they related, had lacerated with its claws the flank of a mare and bitten it in the neck. They informed me that they had been roused in the middle of the night by the tramp of horses galloping through the lanes—snorting and neighing—and supposed that cavalry had been sent to surround the village. But to their surprise they found their own ponies (which are allowed to run loose on the hills when not required for agricultural purposes, and live in a half-wild state, never allowing man to approach them, especially at night-time) had by instinct sought safety in the village, trying to penetrate even into the huts. Amongst the herd was the wounded mare, in a dying state.
I assembled a party of hunters with their boar-dogs, and proceeding to the spot we found round the village tracks of a large animal; evidently of the feline race, as the footprints were round, with no mark of nails, but had pads, as in the print of a cat’s foot. The beast appeared to have avoided as much as possible the open path, and to have walked near or amongst the ilex bushes, on which we found long tawny hairs, showing it was a male lion. We also came across the half-eaten carcasses of a boar and of a porcupine. There were marks too as of a herd of boar making a stampede in a southerly direction, fleeing from the dread monarch of the woods.
We turned our dogs into the thicket—where, by the tracks, we knew the lion had entered—and placed two guns at each run. But the dogs returned from the thicket and shrank behind their masters. They had evidently come upon or winded the lion, and we could not induce them to hunt. The beaters, after entering the thicket, firing guns, and beating drums, refused to advance further; so we had to abandon the hunt.
A woman whom we met informed us that, on going to a fountain in her orchard to draw water, she had met a ‘jin’ (evil spirit), evidently, from her description, a lion; that she became paralysed from fright and could not move; that the ‘jin’ had eyes like lamps, and after gazing at her had turned aside into the bush.