TH E KA THIA WAR LIO N. 5 



were ('(impelled to desert them too, and confine themselves to the Gir. 

 The story goes that the Bardas were deserted hy them in consequence 

 of the o-uns fired on the hills by the British Force sent in -pursuit of 

 the Waohir rebels. Doubtless they disappeared about the same time, 

 but 1 ;im confident that the real reason for their doini; so is the one I 

 have stated above. 



At one time, they must have been fairly numerous in the latter 

 hills, which before the famine abounded in their natural food, viz., 

 sambur and pig besides being the grazing ground in the hot weather 

 of all the cattle in the low country surrounding them. The late Jam 

 Vibhaji of Navanagar told me he had shot lions there as a young 

 man, and there is a curious fresco painting on the walls of one of the 

 rooms in the Lakola at Jamnagar depicting a former ruler, viz., Jam 

 Ranmalji, engaged in the same sport, in the company of his Bhayat 

 with a following of Khawases and armed retainers. 



Occasionally, even now, during the monsoon when the crops are 

 high, a lion or a party of them find their way into the Bardas as 

 well as into the Girnar. At the commencement of the Porebandar 

 Administration, about 23 years ago, a party of three, viz., a lion, 

 a lioness and a cub, made their appearance in the hills. Mr. Sealv, 

 the then Administrator, wished to preserve them, but they were don 

 to death by the Rabaris and the Navanaear Police stationed there at 

 the time, to keep out the Mekrani outlaws against Junagadh. I saw 

 the skin of the lion afterwards in the possession of an officer : it was 

 a very fine animal with a fairly good mane. The Girnar Hill being 

 so much nearer the Gir than the Bardas, occasional visitors to it are 

 not so rare : I was told by Mahomed Khan, the successor of the old 

 Balooch Inamdar of Kadia, a village at base of the south-eastern 

 slopes of the hill, that a few years ago a young lion made its appear- 

 ance in his village and killed a cow belongino- to one of the villagers. 

 It was followed up the next morning by the owner of the cow, a 

 Mecrani sepoy in the service of the old Baloochi. He came 

 suddenly upon the lion in the act of devouring the carcase, on 

 the outskirts of the village, in a prickly-pear thicket. The lion 

 charged at once, knocking over the sepoy and mauling him badly, 

 but the latter kept his presence of mind, and succeeded in driving 

 the beast off, after inflicting such severe wounds upon it with a 

 "jambia" or short covered dagger, that it succumbed to them before 



