The Moors believe that lions will never attack a nude woman, such is the magnanimous beast’s delicate sense of shame. Lionesses, it is to be concluded, are less particular. The dame did not mention that she had a knowledge of this, so we know not whether she dropped her vestments to save her life.
There was a good moon; so I determined to sit for the lion, safely perched on a rock, where, though it would be possible for a lion to climb, yet I should have had a great advantage in an encounter with gun and pistols. I passed the night in a state of excitement—starting at every rustle made by rabbit, ichneumon, or even rats—without seeing anything of the king of beasts. But about midnight I heard what sounded from a distance like the deep bellow of a bull.
A few days later, hearing that the track of the lion had been seen at ‘Ain Diab,’ a wood near Cape Spartel, I collected the hunters and rode to the ground, about eight miles from Tangier. There we tracked the lion into a dense thicket. The dogs again refused to hunt, as on the previous occasion, winding no doubt the lion. This was good proof that he was at home; so posting the guns, I directed the beaters to drive the wood from the foot of the hill and that guns should occasionally be fired and drums beaten.
A few minutes after I had taken up my post a Moor hurried up to where I was standing, in a great state of excitement, pale as death, saying, ‘I have seen the man[69]!’ ‘What man?’ I asked. He repeated, ‘I have seen the man! I had entered the thicket to look at an olive-tree from which I thought I could cut a good ramrod; there is a rock rising about twenty feet above the olive-tree, and as I stooped to look whence I could best cut a branch, I saw a great shaggy head, with fierce eyes glaring at me from between two huge paws. I had laid down my gun to cut the olive stick; I dared not turn to take it up again, so left it there and crawled back through the bush to tell you what I have seen.’
The rock, which he then pointed out, was about two hundred yards from where we stood. I collected the sportsmen and selected three of them (my brother and two Moors upon whose courage I could depend), and we determined to beard the lion in his den. My left arm was in a sling, having been injured while playing cricket a few days previously. As we advanced into the dense thicket I was prevented, by the pain caused by the branches knocking against my arm, from following quickly my companions. Carried away by their desire to slay the lion, they rushed on headlong, regardless of wait-a-bit thorns and other impediments; so I was left in the lurch. Feeling uncertain about the exact direction they had taken, but hearing, as I thought, the sound of some one passing in front of me, I shouted, ‘Where are you? why are you returning?’ No reply. Yet it was evident the moving object had approached me within a very few yards. Again I called, ‘Why don’t you speak?’ Then I heard a rush, as I suddenly came to an open spot of sandy soil, upon which I could trace the footmarks of the lion who had just passed. The animal had evidently moved away from the rock when he heard or saw the three men approaching, and having no desire to attack man unprovoked, had doubled back, passing close to me. All this flashed through my brain; I halted, kept perfectly still, holding my breath, for I had not the courage, alone and with an injured arm, to follow the dread beast. Moreover, I could never have caught it up, at least I tried so to convince myself, and thus to hush any feeling of shame at my cowardice.
My companions returned a few minutes afterwards, reporting that they had reached the rock where the lion had been; but he had evidently left on their approach, and they had tracked him through the bush to the spot where I had stood when he passed. We followed the direction the lion took for some time without success, and we supposed he must have made off at a swinging trot.
The following day we heard that an ox had been killed on the hills of Anjera between Tangier and Tetuan, and that the lion had gone in the direction of the snow-topped mountains of Beni Hassén.
On each visit of a lion to the Tangier district the track of a hyena had been seen to follow that of the sultan of the forest.
On one occasion, when there were rumours of a lion having been heard of in the Tangier district, and we were out hunting boar in the woods near Spartel, I heard several shots fired from the side of a hill where I had posted the guns, and a beater shouting to me, as I stood hidden behind a small rock in some low bush, ‘“Ya el Awar!”—Oh ye blind! The lion to you!’ An instant after I viewed, bounding over the bushes, a large shaggy animal. With its huge mouth open and bristling mane, it looked very terrible; but I knew at once it was not a lion; so I waited till the beast was within a few yards and sent a bullet through its heart. It turned out to be a very large Hyena rufus—striped, not spotted—larger than any specimen of that animal I have seen in the Zoological Gardens or any menagerie.
The stench of the animal was overpowering; the skin was in beautiful condition, and proved very handsome when preserved.