The Lion 103 



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 senti- 

 ment of generosity or mercy. 



A lion when surprised does not usually dash away incon- 

 tinently ; 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 emo- 

 tions 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 pre- 

 tending 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 



