1. THE KING OF BEASTS. 11 



that could quell him was the steady gaze of the human 

 eye. We have loved to picture the noble hunter, whose gun 

 has exploded or somehow gone wrong, and who therefore 

 stands at the mercy of his splendid foe, gazing fearlessly 

 at the king of beasts, who answers him for a while with a 

 look as proud, but at last, unable to sustain the concen- 

 trated power of man's eye, turns and walks majestically 

 into the thicket. Even as he turns we have fancied the 

 danger hardly past, for Mr. Bingley tells us that " one 

 sweep of his tail will throw a strong man to the ground." 

 Have you ever tried, at a safe distance and through the 

 bars of a cage, to stare the lion out of countenance ? In my 

 experience he generally blinks at us sleepily and considers 

 us beneath his notice. But I lately tried the experiment 

 on a little wild cat at the Dusseldorf Zoological Gardens, 

 and can safely say that had it not been for the wire network 

 I should have had my eyes scratched out for my pains, so 

 savagely did the little spitfire fly at me. A gentleman 

 once tried the subduing effect of the human eye on an 

 ostrich at the Cape. At first he thought that his theory 

 was shown to be correct, for the bird sat down, flapped 

 his wings, inflated his neck, and struck its flat stupid 

 head against its hollow bony body. The etfect could only 

 have been temporary, however, for the gentleman was 

 found some hours afterwards lying on his stomach, in such 

 a position that his eye could no longer quell the stupid 

 bird, which alternately jumped upon and sat upon his 

 prostrate body. The great John Hunter, the anatomist, 

 when his lion got loose at Earl's Court House, and his 

 friends urged him to retreat to a safe place, trusted not to 

 the power of his eye, but took out his handkerchief and 

 flipped the beast back into his den. There is something, I 

 say, painful in these disclosures. And I went to the Clifton 

 Gardens the other day thinking mean and democratic 



