64s THE If ON*. 



when removed from beneath the line. Most animals 

 are found larger, fiercer, and stronger, in a warm than 

 in a cold and temperate clime ; they are likewise allowed 

 to be more enterprising and courageous, as their dispo- 

 sitions seem to partake of the ardour of the soil. The 

 lion produced under the burning sun of Africa is of all 

 creatures the most terrible and the most undaunted ; 

 those, however, that are bred in more temperate coun- 

 tries, or near the top of cold and lofty mountains, are 

 far less dangerous than those which are bred in the 

 valleys beneath. The lions of mount Atlas, the tops 

 of which are covered with eternal snows, have neither 

 the strength or the ferocitv of those which are natives- 

 of Bildulgerid or Zaara, where the plains are covered 

 with burning sands. 



Fierce and formidable as this animal appears, he 

 seems instinctively to dread the attacks of man ; and in 

 those countries where he is frequently opposed, his 

 ferocity and courage gradually decrease. The usual 

 manner in which the Negroes and Hottentots make 

 war upon this animal, is, first, to find out the place of 

 its concealment, when four combatants, with iron- 

 headed spears, provoke the creature to commence a 

 fight, in which their number makes them prove victo- 

 rious : but in the burning sands that lie between Mau- 

 ritania and Negroland, and in the uninhabited coun- 

 tries to the north of Cafraria, where man has not taken 

 his abode, the lion's strength is found more fierce, 

 and his propensities more keenly cruel. 



This alteration in the animal's disposition proves at 

 once that it is capable of being tamed ; and, in fact, 

 nothing is more common than for the keepers of wild 

 beasts to amuse themselves by playing with the lion, and 

 even to chastise him without a fault : yet the creature 

 bears it all with calmuess ; and very rarely are instances 



