family, and then pursued his journey, or reposed himself in quiet till the next morning. In each of our towns there is generally a large building, where the elder part of the society are accustomed to meet in the shade of the evening, and converse upon a variety of subjects. The young and vigorous divert themselves with dances and other pastimes, and the children of different ages amuse themselves with a thousand sports and gambols adapted to their age; some aim their little arrows at marks, or dart their light and blunted javelins at each other, to form themselves for the exercises of war and the chase; others wrestle naked upon the sand, or run in sportive races with a degree of activity which I have never seen among the Europeans, who pretend to be our masters.
"I have described to you the building of our houses; simple as they are, they answer every purpose of human life, and every man is his own architect. A hundred or two of these edifices compose our towns, which are generally surrounded by lofty hedges of thorns, to secure us from the midnight attacks of wild beasts, with only a single entrance, which is carefully closed at night"——
"You talk," said Tommy, "of wild beasts; pray, have you many in your country?"
"Yes, master," said the Black, "we have them of many sorts, equally dreadful and ferocious. First, we have the lion, which I daresay you have heard of, and perhaps seen. He is bigger than the largest mastiff, and infinitely stronger and more fierce; his paws alone are such that, with a single blow, he is able to knock down a man, and almost every other animal; but these paws are armed with claws so
sharp and dreadful that nothing can resist their violence. When he roars, every beast of the forest betakes himself to flight, and even the boldest hunter can scarcely hear it without dismay. Sometimes the most valiant of our youth assemble in bands, arm themselves with arrows and javelins, and go to the chase of these destructive animals. When they have found his retreat, they generally make a circle round, uttering shouts and cries, and clashing their arms, to rouse him to resistance. The lion, meanwhile, looks round upon his assailants with indifference or contempt; neither their number, nor their horrid shouts, nor the glitter of their radiant arms, can daunt him for an instant. At length he begins to lash his sides with his long and nervous tail—a certain sign of rising rage—his eyes sparkle with destructive fires; and if the number of the hunters is very great, he perhaps moves slowly on. But this he is not permitted to do; a javelin thrown at him from behind wounds him in the flank, and compels him to turn. Then you behold him roused to fury and desperation: neither wounds, nor streaming blood, nor a triple row of barbed spears, can prevent him from springing upon the daring Black who has wounded him. Should he reach him in the attack, it is certain death; but generally the hunter, who is at once contending for glory and his own life, and is inured to danger, avoids him by a nimble leap; and all his companions hasten to his assistance. Thus is the lion pressed and wounded on every side; his rage is ineffectual, and only exhausts his strength the faster; a hundred wounds are pouring out his blood at once; and at length he bites the ground in the agonies of
death, and yields the victory, though unconquered. When he is dead, he is carried back in triumph by the hunters, as a trophy of their courage. All the village rushes out at once; the young, the old, women and children, uttering joyful shouts, and praising the valour of their champions. The elders admire his prodigious size, his mighty limbs, his dreadful fangs, and perhaps repeat tales of their own exploits; the women seem to tremble at their fierce enemy, even in his death, while the men compel their children to approach the monster and tinge their little weapons in his blood. All utter joyful exclamations, and feasts are made in every house, to which the victors are invited as the principal guests. These are intended at once to reward those who have performed so gallant an achievement, and to encourage a spirit of enterprise in the rest of the nation."
"What a dreadful kind of hunting must this be!" said Tommy; "but I suppose if any one meets a lion alone, it is impossible to resist him."
"Not always," answered the Black: "I will tell you what I once was witness to myself. My father was reckoned not only the most skilful hunter, but one of the bravest of our tribe; innumerable are the wild beasts which have fallen beneath his arm. One evening, when the inhabitants of the whole village were assembled at their sports and dances, a monstrous lion, allured, I suppose, by the smell of human flesh, burst unexpectedly upon them, without warning them of his approach by roaring, as he commonly does. As they were unarmed, and unprepared for defence, all but my father instantly fled, trembling, to their huts; but he, who had never yet
turned his back upon any beast of the forest, drew from his side a kind of knife or dagger, which he constantly wore, and, placing one knee and one hand upon the ground, waited the approach of his terrible foe. The lion instantly rushed upon him with a fury not to be described; but my father received him upon the point of his weapon with so steady and so composed an aim, that he buried it several inches in his belly. The beast attacked him a second time, and a second time received a dreadful wound, not, however without laying bare one of my father's sides with a sudden stroke of his claws. The rest of the village then rushed in, and had soon despatched the lion with innumerable wounds.
"This exploit appeared so extraordinary that it spread my father's fame throughout the whole country, and gave him the name of the undaunted hunter, as an honourable distinction from the neighbourhood. Under such a parent it was not long before I was taught every species of the chase. At first my father only suffered me to pursue stags and other feeble animals, or took me in his canoe to fish. Soon, however, I was intrusted with a bow and arrows, and placed with many other children and young men to defend our rice-fields from the depredations of the river-horse. Rice (it is necessary to observe) is a plant that requires great moisture in the soil; all our plantations, therefore, are made by the side of rivers, in the soft fertile soil which is overflowed in the rainy season. But when the grain is almost ripe, we are forced to defend it from a variety of hurtful animals, that would otherwise deprive us of the fruits of our labours; among these one of the