94 THE LION. 



but little molestation, I have often encountered 

 him, even when the day has been well advanced, 

 either in pursuit of game, or devouring the carcase 

 of some animal he has slain during the past night, 

 but of which time had not permitted him to eat his 

 fill. 



He may, moreover, be seen in the day-time 

 fraternising, so to say, with the various species of 

 antelope, which in numbers, literally innumerable, 

 feed amicably together on the extensive prairies, 

 or savannahs, intersecting the forests of Southern 

 Africa. Scenes of this kind, which remind us of 

 what we read in the Bible, as to " the lion and the 

 lamb lying down together," are not unfamiliar to 

 the traveller, but by no one better or more graphi- 

 cally described than by Delegorguc, who says : 



" Hardly had we finished our labours," in allusion 

 to the flaying of a lion the party had just killed, 

 " when we saw three other large lions, with grave 

 mien and imposing presence, pacing to and fro 

 amongst the herds of gnoos, &c., pasturing every- 

 where around us. The nearest of the lions was within 

 two hundred and fifty paces of the waggon. Ho did 

 not badly represent a Caff re cheiftain counting his 

 flock. The agile gnoos, without exhibiting the 

 slightest fear, remained stationary, some within 

 forty and others sixty paces of the master of these 

 wilds; others, again, actually caracolled about him. 

 I confess that this sort of confidence would have 

 been looked on by me as temerity, had I not been 

 well aware that the lion only bounds, and is inca- 

 pable of contending in speed with the antelope. 



