THE LION 369 



hunter, Sir Samuel Baker, gives his impressions in the following words: "There 

 is nothing so beautiful or enjoyable to my ears as the roar of a lion on a still night, 

 when everything is calm, and no sound disturbs the solitude except the awe- 

 inspiring notes, like the rumble of distant thunder, as they die away into the deepest 

 bass. The first few notes somewhat resemble the bellow of a bull ; these are re- 

 peated in slow succession four or five times, after which the voice is sunk into a 

 lower key, and a number of quick short roars are at length followed by rapid cough- 

 ing notes, so deep and powerful that they seem to vibrate through the earth. ' ' 



This vibrating and reverberating sound alluded to in the last sentence is intensi- 

 fied by the habit lions often have of putting their mouths close to the ground while 

 roaring ; Livingstone mentioned an instance where a lion stood for hours roaring 

 near his camp, and making the sound reverberate in this manner. 



The intensity and grandeur of the sound must, however, be largely increased, 

 when, as is not unfrequently the case, a party of lions are heard roaring in concert ; 

 and the din reaches its height when two or three troops of lions approach a watering 

 place at the same time. On such occasions, says Gordon Cumming, "every mem- 

 ber of each troop sounds a bold roar of defiance at the opposite parties ; and when 

 one roars, all roar together, and each seems to vie with his comrades in the intensity 

 and power of his voice. ' ' 



As a rule, lions commence to roar with the falling shades of evening, and con- 

 tinue with longer or shorter intervals throughout the night ; but Gordon Cumming 

 states that in secluded and undisturbed districts he has frequently heard the roaring 

 sustained as late as 9 or 10 o'clock in the morning on bright and sunny days. Dur- 

 ing cloudy and rainy weather they will, however, roar, although in a lower tone, 

 throughout the day. 



Although in some districts lions are commonly met either alone, or in pairs of 

 males and females, this does not seem to be generally the case in the interior of 

 South Africa, where, according to Mr. Selous, it is more usual to meet with four or 

 five lions consorting together, while parties of from ten to twelve are by no means 

 rare. Such a party of twelve would, in the experience of the same observer, proba- 

 bly comprise about two adult males, three or four full-grown lionesses, and half a 

 dozen large cubs, which, except for their somewhat slighter build, might easily be 

 mistaken for mature females. On one occasion Mr. Selous mentions that he came 

 across a party consisting of a lion, three full-grown lionesses, and three small cubs ; 

 and he adds that if each of these females had possessed a pair of large cubs, such an 

 assemblage would have been rightly termed a party of ten lions. It was probably 

 such a party, although comprising more adult males, that Lord Randolph Churchill 

 encountered during his recent journey in Mashonaland, when in company with his 

 hunter Lee. "We were riding along," writes his lordship in his Letters from 

 Mashonaland, "through a small open glade covered with high grass, Lee a few 

 yards ahead of me, when I suddenly saw him turn round, cry out something to me, 

 and point with his finger ahead. I looked, and saw lolloping along through and over 

 the grass, about forty yards off, a yellow animal about as big as a small bullock. It 

 flashed across me that it was a lion the last thing in the world that I was thinking 

 of. I was going to dismount and take aim, for-I was not frightened at the idea of 



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