THE LION. (Felis Leo.)
The Lion is called the king of beasts, not only from his grave and majestic appearance, but from his prodigious strength. Zoologists describe him as an animal of the cat kind, distinguished from the other species of the genus by the uniformity of his colour, the mane which decorates the male, and a tuft of hair at the tip of the tail, which conceals a small prickle or claw.
Lions were formerly found in all the hot and warmer temperate parts of the whole world; but they are now confined to Africa, and some parts of Asia. The African Lion stands four or five feet high, and his body is from seven to nine feet long. The mane is thick, and somewhat curly; and the colour varies in different parts of Africa, but it is generally of a clear dark brown, deepening in some cases almost into black. The Asiatic Lions are smaller than those of Africa, and their colour paler. The Bengal Lion is of a light brown, with a long flowing mane; the Persian Lion is of a sort of cream-colour, with a short thick mane; and the Lion of Guzerat is of a reddish brown, without any mane. These varieties have been considered as distinct species by some naturalists.
All the varieties agree in their habits; they lie hid in jungles in the long grass, and when aroused either walk quietly and majestically away, or turn and look steadily at their pursuers. Their roar is terrific: and in a wild state, the animal generally roars with his mouth close to the ground, which produces a low rumbling noise, like that of an earthquake. The effect is described by those who have heard it, as making the stoutest heart quail; and the feebler animals, when they hear it, fly in dismay, often in their terror falling in the way of their enemy, instead of avoiding him. Serpents, and some of the larger animals, will, however, fight with Lions, and occasionally kill them; and Lions, when pursued by man, are sometimes hunted with dogs, but are oftener shot, or speared. Those which are exhibited in menageries have generally been caught in pits. The pit is dug where traces have been discovered of a Lion’s path; and it is then covered with sticks and turf. He is deceived by the appearance of solidity presented by the turf, and attempts to walk over it; but the moment he sets his foot upon the covering of the trap, it breaks beneath his weight, and he falls into the pit. He is then kept without food for several days, shaking the ground with his roaring, and fatiguing himself by vainly attempting to escape; till, at last, he becomes exhausted, and so tame as to permit his captors to put ropes round him, and drag him out. He is then put into a cage, and removed in a kind of waggon, wherever his captors may wish to take him.
The generosity of the Lion has been much extolled; but the tales related of it appear to have had no other foundation than the fact, that, like many other beasts, when gorged with food he will not attack a man. A great amount of courage has also been so generally ascribed to him that the expression “as brave as a Lion,” has become proverbial, and he has been regarded as a sort of symbol of that quality. For this respectable character, the Lion is no doubt mainly indebted to his possession of a mane, and to the boldness of appearance produced by his carrying his head elevated; for in all other respects he is a genuine cat, with neither more nor less courage than belongs to the cats in general. As the Lion belongs to the cat tribe, his eyes are incapable of bearing a strong light; it is therefore generally in the night that he prowls about for prey, and when the sun shines in his face, he becomes confused and almost blinded. Lion hunters are aware of this fact. In the day-time they always consider themselves safe, so long as they have the sun on their backs. In the night, a fire has nearly the same effect; and travellers in Africa and the deserts of Arabia can generally protect themselves from Lions and Tigers by making a large fire near their sleeping-place. The strength of the African species is so great that he has been known to carry away a young heifer, and leap a ditch with it in his mouth. The power that man may acquire over this animal has been often shown in the exhibitions of Van Amburgh, Carter, and others; but the attachment which Lions sometimes form for their keepers, was never more strongly exemplified than in the following anecdote.
M. Felix, the keeper of the animals in Paris, some years ago, brought two Lions, a male and female, to the national menagerie. About the beginning of the following June he was taken ill, and could no longer attend them; and another person was under the necessity of performing this duty. The male, sad and solitary, remained from that moment constantly seated at the end of his cage, and refused to take food from the stranger, whose presence was hateful to him, and whom he often menaced by bellowing. The company even of the female seemed now to displease him, and he paid no attention to her. The uneasiness of the animal led to a belief that he was really ill; but no one dared to approach him. At length Felix recovered, and, with an intention to surprise the Lion, crawled softly to the cage, and showed his face between the bars: the Lion, in a moment, made a bound, leaped against the bars, patted him with his paws, licked his hands and face, and trembled with pleasure. The female also ran to him; but the Lion drove her back, and seemed angry, and fearful lest she should snatch any favours from Felix; a quarrel was about to take place, but Felix entered the cage to pacify them. He caressed them by turns; and was afterwards frequently seen between them. He had so great a command over these animals, that, whenever he wished them to separate and retire to their cages, he had only to give the order: when he wished them to lie down, and show strangers their paws or throats, they would throw themselves on their backs on the least sign, hold up their paws one after another, open their jaws, and, as a recompense, obtain the favour of licking his hand.
The Lion, like all animals of the cat kind, does not devour his prey the moment he has seized it. When those in cages are fed, they generally hide their food under them for a minute or two, before they eat it. Thus an instance is known of a man, who was struck down by a Lion, having time to draw his hunting-knife and stab the ferocious beast, who was growling over him, to the heart, before it had seriously injured him. The Lion also resembles a cat in his mode of stealing after, and watching his prey, a long time before seizing it.
Dr. Sparrman mentions a singular instance of the animal’s habits in this respect. A Hottentot perceiving that he was followed by a Lion, and concluding that the creature only waited the approach of night to make him his prey, began to consider what was the best mode of providing for his safety, and at length adopted the following:—Observing a piece of broken ground with a precipitate descent on one side, he sat down by the edge of it; and found, to his great joy, that the Lion also made a halt, and kept at a distance behind him. As soon as it grew dark, the man, sliding gently forward, let himself down a little below the edge of the steep, and held up his cloak and hat on his stick, at the same time gently moving them backward and forward. The Lion, after a while, came creeping towards the object; and mistaking the cloak for the man himself, made a spring at it, and fell headlong down the precipice.
Many interesting anecdotes of Lions and Lion-hunting may be found in the accounts of their travels published by Gordon Cumming, Andersson, and Dr. Livingstone. From the latter we may extract the following account of an escape literally from the very jaws of death:—“Being about thirty yards off,” says the doctor, “I took a good aim at his body through the bush, and fired both barrels into it. The men then called out, ‘He is shot, he is shot!’ Others cried, ‘He has been shot by another man too; let us go to him!’ I did not see any one else shoot at him, but I saw the Lion’s tail erected in anger behind the bush, and turning to the people, said, ‘Stop a little till I load again.’ When in the act of ramming down the bullets I heard a shout. Starting and looking half round, I saw the Lion just in the act of springing upon me. I was upon a little height; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier-dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of terror, though quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe, who see all the operation, but feel not the knife. This singular condition was not the result of any mental process. The shake annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the beast. This peculiar state is probably produced in all animals killed by the carnivora; and if so, is a merciful provision by our benevolent Creator for lessening the pain of death. Turning round to relieve myself of the weight, as he had one paw on the back of my head, I saw his eyes directed to Mebalwe, who was trying to shoot him at a distance of ten or fifteen yards. His gun, a flint one, missed fire in both barrels; the Lion immediately left me, and, attacking Mebalwe, bit his thigh. Another man, whose life I had saved before, after he had been tossed by a buffalo, attempted to spear the Lion while he was biting Mebalwe. He left Mebalwe, and caught this man by the shoulder; but at that moment the bullets he had received took effect, and he fell down dead. The whole was the work of a few moments, and must have been his paroxysm of dying rage.” The interesting nature of this narrative of a most hair-breadth escape must be our excuse for its length.
Lions have been sometimes known to attain a great age; thus Pompey, a large male Lion that died, in 1760, in the Tower of London, was upwards of seventy years old. The usual period, however, seldom exceeds twenty years. The Lion is generally represented as the companion of Britannia, as a national symbol of strength, courage, and generosity. In ancient gems, paintings, and statuary, his skin is the attribute of Hercules. In Scriptural compositions, he is painted at the side of the evangelist St. Mark; and holds the fifth place among the signs of the zodiac, answering to the months of July and August.