^i-wsg- ’ the line With his breaft. But the lion, which came in ' the day-time before it was yet dark, and probably had , feme fufpicions with refpedt to the line, ftruck it away with his foot;,and without betraying.the lead: fear in confequence o f the reports made by the loaded pieces, went on fteadily and. carelefs o f every thing,, and devoured the prey it had left untouched before." M. B uffon (Tom. IX. p. 7.) tells us, 011 the authority o f Marmol and. T hfvfnot, that the lions, which in the- more-cultivated and inhabited parts of Barbary and India, , are ufed to experience man’s fuperiority,, fomethnes fuffer, themfelves to he intimidated with a few ftrokes of a ftick. (and that even by women and children)'from carrying, off their prey.. This accords with feveral accounts that I heard i at the Cape, o f llaves who had had courage enough, with a.knife or fome other weapon ftill more infignificant,' to • defend their mailer’s cattle, which had been attacked in the : dark by a lion. It is lingular, that‘the lion, which', according to many, always kills: his prey immediately i f i t belongs to the brute creation, is reported frequently, although’ provoked, to content himfelf. with merely wounding , the human-fpeeies; : or at leail, to wait: fome time before he gives the fatal blow to the unhappy vidtim he -has got under him. A fa rm e r ,. who the year before had the misfortune to be afpedlator . o f a lion’s feizing two of his: oxen, at the very inftant he , had taken them out o f the. waggon, , told, me, that they immediately fell .down- dead , upon the fpot clofe to each other; though, upon examining the- carcafes afterwards, it appeared that.their backs only had,been broken. In leveral feveral places through which I paffed, they mentioned to me by name, a father and his two fons, who were faid to be ftill living, and who being on foot near a river on their eftate in fearch of a lion, this latter had rulhed out upon them, and thrown one of them under his feet; the two others, however, had had time enough to ihoqt the liop dead upon the fpot, which had lain almoft aprofs the youth fo nearly and dearly related to them, without having done him any particular hurt. I myfelf faw, near the upper part o f Duyven-boek-riviep^ a n elderly Hottentot, who at that time (his wounds being ftill open) bore under one eye and underneath his cheek*, bone the ghaftly marks o f the bite o f a lion, which difl not think it worth his while, to give him any other chaftife- ment for having, together with his mailer (whom I alfo knew) and feveral other Chriftians, hunted him with great intrepidity, though without fuceefs. The converfatiojq ran every where in this part of the country upon one B o t a , a farmer and captain in the militia, who had lain for fome time under a lion,, and had received feveral bruifes from the beaft, having been at the fame time a good deal bitten by him in one arm, as a token to remember hint by ; bqt upon the whole, had, in a manner, had his life given him by this noble animal. The man was, faid then to be, living in the diftridl of Artaquas-kloof. ; I do not rightly know how to account for this merciful difpofition towards mankind. Does it proceed from the lion’s greater refpedl and veneration for man, as being equal to, or even a mightier tyrant than himfelf among the animal creation} o r , is it merely from the fame caprice, ' H 2 which
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