THRILLING ADVENTURES IN AFRICA. 185 



larly taking up their parts, like persons singing a catch. Like Scot- 

 tish stags, they roar loudest in cold, frosty nights ; but on no occa- 

 sions are their voices to be heard in such perfection, or so intensely 

 powerful, as when two or three strange troops of lions approach 

 a fountain to drink at the same time. When this occurs, 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. 



IMPRESSIVE NOCTURNAL CONCERTS. 



The power and grandeur of these nocturnal forest concerts is 

 inconceivably striking and pleasing to the hunter's ear. The effect, 

 I may remark, is greatly enhanced when the hearer happens to be 

 situated in the depths of the forest, at the dead hour of midnight, 

 unaccompanied by any attendant, and ensconced within twenty 

 yards of the fountain which the surrounding troops of lions are 

 approaching. Such has been my situation many scores of times; 

 and though I am allowed to have a tolerably good taste for music, 

 I consider the catches with which I was then regaled as the sweetest 

 and most natural I ever heard. 



As a general rule, lions roar during the night; their sighing 

 moans commencing as the shades of evening envelop the forest, and 

 continuing at intervals throughout the night. In distant and 

 secluded regions, however, I have constantly heard them roaring 

 loudly as late as nine and ten o'clock on a bright sunny morning. 

 In hazy and rainy w^eather they are to be heard at every hour in 

 the day, but their roar is subdued. 



It often happens that when two strange male lions meet at a 

 fountain a terrific combat ensues, which not unfrequently ends in 

 the death of one of them. The habits of the lion are strictly 

 nocturnal; during the day he lies concealed beneath the shade of 

 some low bushy tree or wide-spreading bush, either in the level 

 forest or on the mountain side. He is also partial to lofty reeds, 

 or fields of long, rank yellow grass, such as occur in low-lying vales. 



From these haunts he sallies forth when the sun goes down, and 

 commences his nightly prowl. When he is successful in his beat 



