The Lioness goes with young about fifteen or sixteen weeks, and produces from two to six at a litter. The cubs are delightful little creatures, about as big as a moderate-sized Cat, blind at first, with pretty innocent faces, and delightfully playful ways. The mother is devoted to them; thinks, no doubt, like Celia Chettam, in “Middlemarch,” that where there are babies “things are right enough, and that error, in general, is a mere lack of that central posing force.”
When the cubs are about eight to twelve months old they begin hunting for themselves, by attacking smaller animals, such as sheep and Goats, under their parents’ direction. The period between the ages of one and two years is the worst part of the Lion’s existence, as far as the inhabitants of the district are concerned, for they “kill not only to support themselves, but also in order to learn how to kill.”
At the age of three the young Lion’s education is complete; he leaves his father’s house, and begins to think of getting a house and a wife for himself, and then in her company he “roars after his prey and seeks his meat from God” for the rest of his career. He is not full-grown until the age of eight, when he may be considered as quite adult; and for many years to come revels in the consciousness of unconquerable strength and power, and oppresses all inferior creatures to his heart’s content.
But even to king Leo “life is not all beer and skittles;” there is suffering and work to be borne and done. The lower creatures “groan and travail” with us; and we find disease where we should least expect to find it, namely, in the wild creatures that at their will freely roam the desert. “The Carnivora, too, become diseased and mangy. Lions become lean, and perish miserably by reason of the decay of the teeth. When a Lion becomes too old to catch game, he frequently takes to killing Goats in the villages. A woman or child happening to go out at night falls a prey too; and as this is his only source of subsistence now, he continues it. From this circumstance has arisen the idea that the Lion, when he has once tasted human flesh, loves it better than any other. A man-eater is, invariably, an old Lion. And, when he overcomes his fear of man so far as to come to villages for Goats, the people remark, ‘His teeth are worn, he will soon kill men.’ They at once acknowledge the necessity of instant action, and turn out to kill him. When living far away from population, or when, as is the case in some parts, he entertains a wholesome dread of the Bushmen and Bakalahari, as soon as either disease or old age overtakes him, he begins to catch Mice and other small Rodents, and even to eat grass. The natives, observing undigested vegetable matter in his droppings, follow up his trail in the certainty of finding him, scarcely able to move, under some tree, and despatch him without difficulty. The grass may have been eaten as medicine, as is observed in Dogs.”
Before leaving the subject of the life and death of our great Carnivore, it will be as well to add a few words as to its breeding in captivity. It is stated by a naturalist who probably knows more about the matter than any other man,[14] that “the Lion appears to breed more freely than any other species of Felis, and the number of young at a birth is greater, not infrequently four, and sometimes five, being produced in a litter. It is remarkable that these animals breed more freely in travelling collections (wild-beast shows) than in zoological gardens. Probably the constant excitement and irritation produced by moving from place to place, or change of air, may have considerable influence in the matter.
“A very extraordinary malformation, or defect, has frequently occurred among Lions produced during the last thirty years, in the Regent’s Park. This imperfection consists in the roof of the mouth being open. The palatal bones do not meet; the animal, is, therefore, unable to suck, and consequently always dies. This abnormal condition has not been confined to the young of any one pair of Lions, but many Lions that have died in the Zoological Gardens, and not in any way related to each other, have, from time to time, produced these malformed young, the cause of which appears to me quite unaccountable.”
Lion-hunting has not yet become, like Tiger-hunting, a regularly organised sport, entered upon at a particular season by large parties of Europeans, who think far more of the fun of the thing than of ridding the world of destroying beasts. The sport of Lion-hunting, on the other hand, is only undertaken by an individual traveller, now and then, who has to take nearly the whole of the danger on his own shoulders, and is quite without the extraneous aids afforded by regiments of Elephant-mounted fellow-hunters, and armies of beaters. The rest of the Lion-killing is done, not for sport, but for use, to get rid of a beast which has decimated flocks, and put friends and neighbours to a cruel death. In all parts where the Lion is found, the natives have one or more ways of trying to get rid of him: sometimes meeting him in open fight, sometimes destroying him in a more underhand manner, by pitfalls, or the like.
Of all methods, that which is attended with the least danger is the ditch, or pitfall, of the Arabs of Algeria. This is a pit four or five yards broad, and ten deep, dug in the middle of the douar, or small encampment of from ten to twenty tents, in which the Arabs live during the winter. The whole douar is surrounded by a hedge, two or three yards in height, and a lesser hedge is placed round the pit to prevent the cattle falling into it; the latter being kept loose within the encampment to attract Lions by their scent and their cries. When the desirable effect is attained, and a Lion has made up his mind to take toll from the flock he hears bleating within the enclosure, he leaps the hedge with one of his tremendous bounds, and, the ditch being a less distance from the hedge than the horizontal range of his leap, falls headlong into the trap prepared for him, from which, owing to its depth, and the fact that it is made narrower above than below, his most frantic efforts can never succeed in extricating him.
As soon as the Arabs hear his roars, and know that they have their enemy a prisoner, they prepare a great feast, summon all the inhabitants of the neighbouring douars, and, proceeding to the pit’s mouth, every one hurls stones at the poor animal, calling him at the same time by all the opprobrious names in the Arabic vocabulary, and, finally, fire upon him until he is dead. When this is the case, they haul up the carcase with ropes; and, having got their prey on level ground, “the mothers take each a small piece of the animal’s heart and give it to their male children to eat, in order to render them strong and courageous. They take away as much as possible of the mane in order to make amulets of it, which are supposed to have the same effect. Then, when the skin has been removed and the flesh divided, each family goes back to its respective douar, where, in the evening, beneath the tents, the event of the day will, for a long time, be the favourite story with every one.”