218 THE LION AND OTHER BEASTS OF PREY 



Sparrman relates that a lion was once seen at the Cai)e to take a 

 beifer in his mouth; and though the legs of the latter dragged along 

 the ground, yet he seemed to carry her off with the same ease that a 

 cat does a rat. He likewise leaped over a broad dike with her, without 

 the least difficulty. According to the testimony of others, he can drag 

 the heaviest ox with ease a considerable way ; and a horse, or smaller 

 prey, he finds no difficulty in throwing upon his shoulder and carrying 

 .off to any distance he may find convenient. 



A very young lion w'as seen to carry off a horse about a mile from 

 the spot where he killed it. In another instance a lion having borne 

 oft* a heifer of two years old, was followed on the spoor or track, for 

 full five hours, by a party on horseback, and throughout the distance, 

 the carcass of the heifer was only once or twice discovered to have 

 touched the ground. 



It is singular that the lion, which, according to many, always kills 

 his prey immediately, if it belongs to the brute creation, is said fre- 

 quently, although provoked, to content himself with merely wounding 

 the human species; or at least to wait some time before he gives the 

 fatal blow^ to the unhappy victim he has got under him. A farmer, 

 who had the misfortune to be a spectator of a lion's seizing two of his 

 oxen, at the very instant he had taken them out of his wagon, stated 

 that they immediately fell down dead upon the spot, close to each other ; 

 though, on examining the carcasses afterwards, it appeared that their 

 backs only had been broken. In another instance, a father and his two 

 sons, being on foot near a river on their estate, in search of a lion, the 

 creature rushed out upon them, and threw one of them under his feet. 

 The two others, however, had time enough to shoot the lion dead on 

 the spot as it had lain across the youth so dearly related to them, with- 

 out having done him any particular hurt. 



'*T myself saw," says Sparrman, ''near the upper part of Duyren- 

 hoek River, an elderly Hottentot, who, at that time (his \vounds being- 

 still open), bore under one eye, and underneath his cheek-l)one, the 

 ghastly marks of the bite of a lion, which did not think it worth his 

 while to give him any other chastisement for having, together with his 

 master (whom I also knew), and several other Christians, hunted a 

 lion with great intrepidity, though without success. The conversation 



