96 Wild Beasts 



carried past his camp by night for those of a human being, 

 and went to the rescue. More than this, if the brute itself 

 has any feeling about this matter, — and there is every reason 

 to believe that it has, — all manifestations of pain heighten 

 the pleasurable excitement it experiences in putting an 

 animal to death. Cruelty is organized in its brain, and to 

 a beast of prey, pity is about as possible as poetic inspira- 

 tion. Love of bloodshed, exultation in carnage, immiti- 

 gable ferocity, are ingrained in them all ; and so far as a 

 lion appreciates expressions of mental anguish and physical 

 torture, they thrill his fierce spirit with a savage joy. 



Gordon Gumming 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, ac- 

 cording 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 immi- 

 nent 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 



