AFRICAN TRAVELLERS AND BEASTS OF PREY. 139 



dangerous beasts of prey is usually in almost inverse 

 ratio to their size, and strength: there are in fact no 

 creatures which are more careful about their own safety 

 than they are. This we venture to think has been 

 sufficiently proved, by the extreme rarity of attacks 

 upon sleeping travellers by night, in the interior of 

 Africa, and other places where such animals were 

 known to be extremely numerous yet men have been 

 known to pass years of their lives, sleeping nightly on 

 the ground, in security, while troops of lions and other 

 dangerous beasts of prey were to be heard, almost as 

 regularly as the darkness closed in, moving around them 

 and uttering their respective cries in the vicinity of 

 the camp ; and in those exceedingly rare instances 

 where men have fallen victims to the nocturnal attacks 

 of these creatures, it has almost always been in conse- 

 quence of the neglect of the most obvious precautions, 

 or because the assailant was driven by hunger, in 

 consequence of the game suddenly deserting a district 

 from failure of grass, or other articles of their natural 

 food. Then, as we know, animals emboldened by 

 hunger will become exceedingly daring, and will 

 run risks which they would not otherwise dream of 

 incurring. 



We make bold however to assert that the fiercest 

 beasts of prey will not habitually venture upon the dar- 

 ing incursions nightly made by so called shy and timid 

 animals, like deer, simply in order to attain some 

 coveted delicacy, not at all a necessary article of diet 

 to them, but which can only be obtained by creeping 

 silently in at the dead of night, among the dwellings 

 of men. These beautiful creatures have often been 

 known to commit robberies of surpassing audacity, 



