THE LION. 139 
into the long grass which fringed the edge of the ravine for the purpose of starting the Lion. 
When the Boer was about a hundred yards from the lad, he saw him stop, raise his gun, 
and fire suddenly, though apparently without aim, and then turn, running a few paces 
towards him. At the same instant, he saw the Lion make two prodigious bounds, and 
alight on his boy, whom he instantly dragged to the ground. 
All this occurred in a very few seconds ; so that before the Boer, who ran to the 
rescue, arrived, the young Dutchman was mortally wounded. The Lion, crouching down 
among the long grass, retreated a few yards, then bounded over the rocks and reeds until 
out of sight, the shot which was fired by the old Boer being unheeded by him. When 
the father reached the fatal spot, he found his son senseless, and torn so fearfully as to 
preclude all possibility of recovery. He, however, had him conveyed home, but the lad 
never again spoke, and died during the night. Revenge was the first thought of the old 
Dutchman, who immediately sent round to his neighbours to warn them that a Lion was 
in their vicinity, and to beg their assistance on the following day in tracing the Lion 
to its den. 
The night was passed by the Boer as usual ; for these men are very philosophic, and 
rarely allow any circumstance to interfere with their comfort. On the followi ing morning, 
however, he was up very early, busily preparing for the great business of the day ; bullets 
were being cast and powder-horn filled, &c. &e., when he was suddenly interrupted by the 
entrance of his little Bushman, who had, since his capture by the Boer some years before, 
reached his full growth, and might be estimated at any age between sixteen and sixty. 
‘What do you here ?’ asked “the Dutchman. 
The Bushman, who was armed with his tiny bow and arrows, answered by showing a 
small tuft of black hair like a shaving brush. 
This was an intelligible answer to the Boer, who, with eagerness, demanded the 
particulars ; and the following is a translation of the Bushman’s account. 
When the Lion struck down the young Dutchman, the Bushman was sitting upon a 
rock which commanded a view of the scene. The little creature then watched the Lion in 
its retreat, and marked it down amongst some long grass and bushes at the distance of a 
mile or so. He then procured an old and nearly useless ox from the cattle kraal, and, 
arming himself with his bow and poisonous arrows, drove the beast close to the Lion’s 
retreat, made it fast to a bush, and concealed himself in some long grass. 
The Bushman, from his nocturnal habits, can see by night nearly as well as by day ; 
and so, when, : shortly after dark, the Lion left his lair and walked on to the open plain 
outside, the Bushman was an attentive observer of his movements. 
The ox soon attracted the attention of the Lion, which approached with caution upon 
its victim; the Bushman at the same time holding his bow and arrows in readiness for 
an attack upon fds victim. Soon the Lion sprang upon the ox, and, at the instant when 
he was engaged in the death struggle, the Bushman, with great rapidity, twice twanged 
his bow, and lodged two poisoned barbs in the Lion’s flesh. 
The ox was soon overcome, and was drageed amongst the reeds, whilst the Bushman 
sought shelter in the crannies of the rocks near the scene of his operations. 
As soon as day began to dawn, the Bushman commenced his stealthy approach, 
through the grass and reeds, towards the Lion’s lair, and was shortly sitting grinning on 
the carcass of the Lion, which, but a few hours before, was a terror to all the Hottentots 
on the farm, but now, overcome by the malignant poison with which the arrows had been 
prepared, was as harmless as one of the stones on which he lay. 
Being anxious to proclaim his triumph, the Bushman merely cut off the tuft of hair 
from the tail of the Lion and returned with this trophy to the Dutchman, who was not, 
however, quite satisfied with the business, for he would have preferred to shoot the Lion 
himself ; moreover, he grudged the loss of the old ox, which he thought might have been 
spared to die the usual death of a draught ox, Ze. to work until it drops from fatigue, and 
to die where it falls. The Bushman, however explained that, if he had wounded fie ion 
as it was walking along, it would have sprung upon him as soon as it felt the sharp arrow 
in its side; but, ‘when it was busily employed in killing the ox, it would only think that 
the ox had pricked it with its horns, and would neither see nor think of its human enemy. 
