18 THE LION. 



planted, so to say, on the poor animal's bind quar- 

 ters; for striking his claws deep into the neck of 

 the victim, he, by a violent effort, brought its fore 

 and hind quarters into such close proximity that the 

 spine, as a natural consequence, was at once separated. 

 He (Hans) told me, moreover, that on a certain 

 occasion a lion seized one of his largest oxen by 

 the muzzle, and dragged it away bodily to a dis- 

 tance, when he killed and devoured it at his leisure. 

 Thunberg's testimony is to the like effect. " The 

 lion," he says, "is possessed of such immense 

 strength that he will not only attack an ox of the 

 largest size, but will very nimbly throw it over 

 his shoulders, and leap over a fence four feet high 

 with it, although at the same time the ox's legs 

 hang dangling on the ground." 



And Sparman tells us, " that he saw a lion in the 

 Cape Colony take a heifer in his mouth, and though 

 the legs trailed on the ground, ho carried it off as a 

 cat would a rat, and leaped a broad dike without the 

 least difficulty." 



But what Montgomery Martin relates as to the 

 enormous strength of the lion, is still more extra- 

 ordinary. After stating " that a young lion has 

 been known to carry a good-sized horse a mile from 

 the spot where he killed it," lie goes on to say : 

 "An instance occurred in the Sneemoberg, where 

 one of these beasts carried off a two-year-old heifer ; 

 his " spoor " was followed by the hunters for five 

 hours on horseback, and throughout the whole dis- 

 tance, the carcase was ascertained to have touched 

 the ground only once or twice !" 



