IN JEOPARDY. 205 



isolated position, the infants were either left to 

 perish with hunger, or to be devoured by beasts 

 of prey. Should a suspicion, however, arise in 

 the savage bosom that these helpless innocents might 

 fall into the hands of friends, they effectively pre- 

 vented this from taking place by collecting them 

 into a fold, and after raising over them a pile of 

 brushwood, applied the flaming torch to it, when 

 the town, but lately the scene of mirth, became 

 a heap of ashes. 



"On such an event as that described occurring," 

 MoiTatt goes on to say, " the lions scent the slain 

 and leave their lair. The hyaenas and jackals 

 emerge from their lurking places in broad day 

 and revel in the carnage, while a clou 1 of vul.uivs 

 may be seen descending on the living and the 

 dead, and holding a carnival on human Hesh !" 



On another occasion Mofl'att considered him- 

 self in considerable jeopardy from a lion. After 

 telling us that on one of his journeys he had slept 

 in the open air, near to the door of the lint in 

 which the principal man of the village and his wife 

 resided, he goes on to say, " In the morning I 

 remarked to my host that it appeared some of the 

 cattle had broken loose during the night, as I had 

 heard something moving about on the outside ot 

 the thorn-fence under which L lav. 'Oh!' In- 

 replied, 'I \vas looking at the "spoor" just now, 

 it was the lion ;' adding that a few nights pre- 

 vious it sprang over the fence at the very place 

 where I had been lying, and seized a goat, with 

 which it bounded oft' through another part of the 



