DOGS OF CHINA AND JAPAN 



hunting lions overcame two bears, one of them weighing 

 1300 catties, and deposited the skins stretched over wooden 

 dummies in the Yung Ho Rung (Lama temple), where the 

 dummies may still be seen. It may be that these hunting 

 lions were useful rather for the prestige they gave their 

 masters than for the hunting itself. Rameses II and III 

 each possessed a tame lion which accompanied them to 

 battle and attacked the enemy. Budge, however, remarks 

 that they were probably more valued as symbols of the 

 Sun-god than as effective combatants. The Egyptians be- 

 lieved that a god was always incarnate in their king. 



Passing now to the religious aspect of the subject it may 

 be suggested that the origin of lion-worship goes back to a 

 time when lions were very plentiful in Northern Africa and 

 in Asia, and perhaps to a period when man's unequal struggle 

 with the King of Beasts was habitually decided in favour of 

 the latter. The lion was worshipped by the Egyptians and 

 was usually associated with the sun-god. Sacred lions were 

 kept at many places throughout Egypt. By the time of the 

 reign of Tiglath-pileser, King of Assyria, 700 B.C., lion- 

 worship was probably in its decline in that country, for lion 

 hunting had become the favourite sport of the Assyrian 

 kings, and this ruler boasts, " Under the auspices of Nineb 

 (God of War), my patron, I killed 120 lions in my youthful 

 ardour, in the fulness of my manly might on my own feet ; 

 and 800 lions I killed from my chariot." This humbling of 

 the lion was effected probably in Syria. Lower Egypt was 

 occupied by the Assyrians early in the sixth century B.C., 

 but by its close the Assyrian power had been superseded by 

 that of Babylon, to be overthrown in its turn by Cyrus, King 

 of the Persians, in 539 B.C. 



The Persians, previous to the Mohammedan conquest, paid 

 special homage to the lion. It is not possible to define the 



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