Part 8

Gordon Cumming relates a story which shows what a human being may experience when in the clutches of a lion. His party had encamped, and “the Hottentots,” as he tells, “made their fire about fifty yards away, they, according to their custom, being satisfied with the shelter of a large bush. The evening passed away cheerfully. Soon after dark we heard elephants breaking trees in the forest across the river, and once or twice I strode away into the darkness, some distance from the fireside, to stand and listen to them. I little, at that time, dreamed of the imminent peril to which I was exposing my life, nor thought that a blood-thirsty, man-eating lion was crouching near, and watching his opportunity to spring into the kraal and consign one of us to a horrible death. About three hours after the sun went down I called to my men to come and take their coffee and supper, which was ready for them at my fire. After supper three of them returned before their comrades to their own fireside, and lay down; these were John Stofolus, Hendric, and Ruyter. In a few moments an ox came out by the gate of the kraal and walked round the back of it. Hendric and Ruyter lay on one side of the fire, under a blanket, and Stofolus lay on the other. At this moment I was sitting, taking some barley broth; our fire was very small, and the night was pitch dark and windy.

“Suddenly the appalling and murderous voice of an angry and blood-thirsty lion burst upon my ear within a few yards of us, followed by the shrieking of the Hottentots. Again and again the murderous roar of attack was repeated. We heard John and Ruyter scream, ‘The lion! the lion!’ Still, for a few moments, we thought he was but chasing one of the dogs round the kraal. But the next instant Stofolus rushed into the midst of us almost speechless with fear and horror, his eyes bursting from their sockets, and shrieked out, ‘The lion! the lion! he has got Hendric; he dragged him away from the fire beside me. I struck him with burning brands upon the head, but he would not let go his hold. Hendric is dead! O God! Hendric is dead! Let us take fire and seek him!’ The rest of my people rushed about, yelling as if they were mad. I was angry with them for their folly, and told them if they did not stand still and be quiet, the lions would have another of us, for very likely there was a troop of them. Then I ordered the dogs, which were nearly all tied, to be loosed, and the fire increased as far as it could be. I shouted Hendric’s name, but all was still. I told my men that Hendric was dead, and that a regiment of soldiers could not help him then. Hunting my dogs forward, I had everything brought within the kraal, when we lighted our fire, and closed the entrance as well as we could.

“My terrified people sat around the fire with guns in their hands, fancying at every moment that the lion would return and spring into the midst of us. When the dogs were first let go, the stupid brutes, as dogs often prove to be when most needed, instead of going at the lion, rushed fiercely at one another and fought desperately for some minutes. After this they got his wind, and going at him, disclosed his position. They kept up a continual barking until day dawned, the lion occasionally springing at them and driving them in upon the kraal. This horrible monster lay all night within forty yards of us, consuming the wretched man he had chosen for his prey. He had dragged him into a little hollow at the back of the thick bush beside which the fire was kindled, and there he remained until day broke, careless of our proximity.

“It appeared that when the unfortunate Hendric rose to drive in the ox, the lion watched him to his fireside, and he had scarcely lain down before the brute sprang upon him and Ruyter (for both were under one blanket) with his appalling roar; and, roaring as he lay, grappled him with his fearful claws, and kept biting the poor man’s chest and shoulder, all the while feeling for his neck, having got hold of which, he dragged him away backward round the brush into the dense shade.

“As the lion lay upon him he faintly cried, ‘Help me! Help me! Oh God! men, help me!’”

Here was no instinctive fear of man, no sign of the timidity so much talked about, no falling off of the victim into the dreamy languor Dr. Livingstone expatiates upon. His pain was sooner over than that of some we know of; death came when the neck was crushed, but what had he suffered previously?

There is an alleged trait of character which should be alluded to on account of the propensity displayed even by those who really know this animal to make a composite being of him--part lion and part gentleman.

Gérard is one of them. He was to some extent, no doubt, deceived by common report, and likewise misled by his knowledge of those domestic virtues that really belong to the animal. At all events he constructed a lion that bears a curious resemblance to a raffiné of the famous old duelling days in France without the seigneur’s levity or his lewdness. When his family, whom he has up to this time fed himself, are able to join in the chase, the lion finds the game, strikes it down, and then, with that refined self-abnegation which comports so well with his natural character, he retires to a little distance from the quarry in order that Madame may be first served. This and much more to the same effect.

It happens, however, that one man, and only one to the writer’s knowledge, the Hon. W. H. Drummond, chanced to see what Gérard has depicted in colors furnished by his own fancy. His narrative of the incident from first to last is much more in accordance with the style of manners taught in the struggle for existence than the former one. One day while watching the motions of some antelopes from the summit of a grassy and rock-strewn ridge, Drummond suddenly became aware that he was not the only hunter interested in the game of that vicinity. A lioness with her whelps crouched among the herbage at a little distance, and so intent were they upon the movements of their expected prey, that he was entirely unnoticed. While awaiting events a band of quaggas passed close to some bushes at the foot of the slope, and then a lion’s form was launched upon the leading stallion, and he fell dead from a blow with the beast’s forearm.

Without any delay the lion proceeded to help himself, his family drawing near, but waiting until his appetite had been stayed. “The sultan of the desert” has a short temper when he is feeding, and on many occasions has been known to eat his wife, either in the way of reproof to her importunity at such times, or because he did not have food enough. It would seem that this lioness suspected something of the kind might occur, for she kept herself and the young ones in the background until his highness had finished, which he, not being particularly hungry, did very soon. When he had walked away and stretched himself out, the rest pressed forward, and the mother treated her offspring with scant curtesy. She pounced upon those parts she preferred, and boxed the little ones, who were struggling for a bite, out of the way whenever they incommoded her.

Thus far in the catalogue of leonine gifts and graces we have not discovered any that are peculiarly their own; on the contrary, when examined closely, those with which lions are accredited turn out to be counterfeits. Gordon Cumming says of the lion, in company with his mate and whelps, that, “at this time he knows no fear,” and in defence of his family “he will face a thousand men.” This is a rhetorical flourish, and yet now when it has become the fashion to call the creature a poltroon, the statement as it stands is better supported by proof than almost any other that has been made concerning its character. If this animal is not brave, nobody is in a position to call it cowardly. All the evidence tends the other way. Taken as it is, looked upon as a brute to whom heroism, sentiment, and high resolve must be as impossible as righteousness, the lion preserves the demeanor of courage better than any other member of the Felidæ.

Moffat, Lichtenstein, Freeman, Rath, Galton, say with W. C. Kerr (“The Far Interior”) that “when a lion is thoroughly hungry there is no limit to his audacity and daring.” Every being must have some incitement to action, and those motives which are most powerful with lions appear to be anger and appetite.

Postponing for the moment his relations with mankind, let us see what kinds of game the lion is accustomed to prey upon. No coercion can be exercised in this direction. Actual starvation might take away liberty of choice, but, as a rule, it must be admitted that a selection of this kind is significant of the opinion which an animal has of its own powers, as it also is of its boldness. The giraffe, which lions occasionally kill, is entirely defenceless: so with elands and all antelopes. This is likewise the case with those domestic animals which are devoured. It has been said that the elephant is sometimes attacked, but this is one of those stories which only display the ignorance of those who propagate them. The black and white rhinoceros is never assailed, although Delgorgue actually refers to the latter, a beast second only to the elephant in size and most formidably armed, as if it were commonly destroyed. “Maintes fois trouvai-je des rhinocéros de la plus haute taille, que ni leur poids, ni leur force, ni leur fureur, n’avaient pu préserver de la mort.” If anything were needed to set off this pleasant statement, it could be found in Delgorgue’s roundly declared opinion that lions are all “abject cowards.”

But in Africa the lion constantly preys upon the buffalo, and without going so far as Andersson in saying that he principally lives on this species, the fact that it is continually killed is beyond question. Many famous hunters suppose that an African buffalo is the most dangerous creature to be found on the “Dark Continent.” It is of immense size and strength, active, brave, and fierce.

No account is known to the writer of a single lion that was seen to slay a full-grown buffalo, and several authorities doubt whether this be possible. The latter have, however, often been shot while bearing the scars of combats with one or more lions. According to the evidence as it exists, the case stands in this way. One lion may attack a buffalo, it is impossible to say whether he will or not; two of them certainly do so, and the battles that ensue are of the most desperate description. It is known, also, that these conflicts do not always end in favor of the assailants.

“The lion kills only for food,” says Major Leveson, meaning that in mature life he does not commit useless murders, or show the same love of blood for its own sake as some other members of his family. Without doubt, this animal is not sanguinary when compared with a panther or puma, but it is quite as likely that he is restrained from unnecessary carnage by economic views, as by any sentiment of generosity or mercy.

A lion when surprised does not usually dash away incontinently; if his retreat is not interfered with, and he has learned that firearms are more effective than his own weapons of offence, he falls back slowly. When so placed that they cannot escape, some lions die like curs, but the majority of accounts represent them as perishing gallantly. Such is the case also when for any reason the creature has resolved to fight. Then it seems to make no difference to him how many foes he encounters. Numerous narratives very similar in detail have been written by different observers of such scenes. No other wild beast confronts a body of armed men after his manner. That last parade in face of a horde of savages beneath whose assagais he is about to die, is so striking that false inferences from the sight can scarcely be avoided. It is not the “deliberate valor” of Milton we see, nor even heroic despair; it is nothing perhaps with which humanity in its nobler emotions can sympathize; but it looks as if it were, and men have yielded to their feelings and believed that it was. “Life,” says Professor Robinson, “has but one end for a lion--enjoyment. He is incapable of forgetting that he is only a huge cat, or flying in the face of nature by pretending to be anything else.... He makes no claim to invincible courage; on the contrary, he prefers, as a rule, to enjoy life rather than to die heroically. But when death is inevitable, he is always heroic, or even when danger presses him too closely ... a lion in the shadow of death remains a lion still.”

All things being equal, lions conduct themselves towards mankind according to the suggestions of the time being and their previous experiences. One that had just eaten an antelope might pass by a man; another might kill him. The former, by all accounts, is the more likely to occur, and it is said that Bushmen and other natives can tell by the voice whether he is full or fasting; and in the first case have no fear that he will become aggressive without provocation. When forbearance is not a matter of repletion, it is no doubt, in some measure, the result of sloth. A lion never does anything he can avoid doing.

Baker’s story of the lion that met a Nubian sheik with two companions, and tore the leader to pieces, is one of a great number of instances that might be brought forward to show that wherever these animals are not conscious of being put entirely at a disadvantage by superiority of arms, they display little of that fear of man which is commonly attributed to them. Poorly-armed tribes are under no such delusion. The Ouled Meloul, or Ouled Cassi Arabs whose douars were attacked would have been as difficult to persuade of the lion’s timidity towards mankind, as those Makubas on the Ghobe, or “the miserable Bakorus,” whom he devoured at his good pleasure. Dr. Schweinfurth (“The Heart of Africa”) was at an Egyptian garrison where the soldiers were carried off from within their own lines night after night. Moffat, Delgorgue, Livingstone, Cumming, all record incidents of what they call his “desperate attacks.” Still, and as if to show what it is possible for men to commit themselves to when writing about wild beasts, we have Burchell’s opinion (“Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa”).

This author, according to his own account, spent four years in a lion country, and saw but one during the whole of this time. That one was accidentally encountered on a journey, and they succeeded in shooting it through the body, upon which it drew off into the bushes and disappeared. Yet it is on the strength of an experience like this that Burchell says he has “no very high opinion of the lion’s courage.” Of course the reference has an appearance of being overstated, but whoever reads the bulky quartos in which these travels are written will find that such is not the case.

So much in the way of a review of Buffon’s general description.

It is easier, however, and safer to decide as to what lions are not, than to say what they are. Almost everything written upon this subject deals nearly to exclusion with the animal’s habits, and leaves its character untouched. Even in this respect also our information is not complete.

C. J. Andersson (“The Lion and the Elephant”) remarks that “the modes of life” belonging to “the Lord of the African Wilds” are not at all thoroughly known, and he expresses an opinion fully justified by facts to the effect that he has himself been able to bring together much information in this connection that “may not have been noticed by other travellers and sportsmen.” In making up a summary of what has gone before, the writer is much indebted to this valuable work.

We have no psychological scheme for lions, and must take their characteristics as they happen to present themselves, without any pretence at arrangement, based either upon their natural order or real importance. There is an account given in MS. to Lloyd, the editor of Andersson’s posthumous papers, that shows the character of the Indian lion in much the same light that his African congener has been placed by Baker, Drummond, etc.

“This beast was believed to have his lair in a patch of copse-wood where, from the jungle having been some years previously cut away by the natives for stakes and the like, the young trees had grown up again so close and tangled as to be almost impenetrable. But this patch was of no great extent, its area, perhaps, not exceeding that of Grosvenor Square. The other parts of the wood surrounding the tank were in a state of nature, consisting of bushes and timber trees.

“On reaching the ground, the natives were stationed in the trees thereabouts as markers. But it was not till the party had beaten the patch with their elephants for a considerable time that the lion was discovered to be on foot, and some further time elapsed before he was viewed as he was stealing away from the brake, along a sort of hedge-row, for the more open country beyond. Captain Delamaine, who was some forty or fifty paces from the beast, then fired, and wounded him severely in the body.

“On receiving the ball, the lion immediately faced about, and charged my elephant, but the nerves of the latter having been recently shaken by wounds received from a royal tiger, turned tail, and regularly bolted. In the scurry through the jungle, one of the guns, having been caught by a tree, fell from the howdah and was broken, a loss, as the sequel proved, that might have been attended with very disastrous consequences.”

But the lion soon gave up the chase, and retraced his steps to the patch whence he had been started. Here he was followed by Captain Harris alone, Delamaine’s elephant, from its late fright, having become too unsteady to be taken into thick cover.