16 THE LION. 



And as further evidence of the little dread that 

 domestic animals entertain for the lion's roar, or 

 even for the beast himself, I may mention that it is 

 a usual practice with the South African hunters, 

 after having killed and flayed a lion, to strap his 

 skin behind the saddle, and the horse, even when 

 untrained to the chase, is rarely or never known to 

 shew symptoms of fear. Gerard indeed tells us, he 

 carried his first lion strapped on two mules placed 

 side by side. 



The length of a South African adult lion, from the 

 nose to the extremity of the tail, I take to be 

 from eleven to twelve feet, and its height from heel 

 to shoulder, three and a-half feet and upwards. Indi- 

 viduals are, however, said to attain to a still larger 

 size. 



Delegorgue when speaking of the District ofMas- 

 selica, on the Eastern coast, where he hunted for 

 some time, and where, from circumstances, he 



injury was sustained; the oxen were pursued, brought b;ick, and 

 secured to the waggon, for we could ill aflbrd to lose any. Africaner, 

 seeing the reluctance of the people to pursue in a dark and gloomy 

 ravine, grasped a fire-brand, and exclaimed, 'Follow me,' and but 

 for this promptness and intrepidity we must have lost some of our 

 number, for nothing can exceed the terror of oxen at even the smell 

 of a lion. Though they may happen to lie in the worst condition 

 possible, worn out with fatigue and hunger, the moment the shaggy 

 monster is perceived they start off like race-horses, with their tails 

 erect, and sometimes days will elapse before they are found." -El). 



* The length of the dried skin of a wild beast is not to my mind 

 any criterion of its real size when living, because in my own country, 

 Sweden (and the like is probably the case in Africa), when the skin 

 of a bear or wolf, for instance, is nailed up to the wall to dry, it is 

 not infrequently drawn to an unnatural length, and one altogether 

 disproportioncd to its breadth. 



