78 Wild Beasts 



of a more varied and extensive acquaintance with the 

 species than any individual contact with it would be likely 

 to give. 



There is much that is inadequate and also illusory 

 in Gerard's descriptions. Still, he met the formidable 

 adversaries he encountered in a heroic spirit, and had seen 

 them face to face too often not to be disabused of many 

 errors. The sultan of the desert as known by him did not 

 fear man, was not abashed in his presence, and could not 

 be quelled by his eye. On the contrary, an attempt to 

 stare him out of countenance was, as Sir Samuel Baker 

 observes, the surest means to provoke an attack. Gerard's 

 experience carried him too far. He only knew the lions 

 of Algeria and Oran, but he thought that these animals 

 were the same everywhere. Such is not the case. The 

 race is now extinct in great areas where it was once 

 distributed. No trace of it is left in many countries of 

 Asia Minor, and it is dying out in Western Asia and 

 India. In some regions man has exterminated the lion 

 or driven him away, and there are other districts where this 

 animal has learned that the battle nearly always goes 

 against him, and where he now has to be forced to fight. 

 On the other hand, certain tribes cower before lions, 

 and this does not fail to change the relations they sustain 

 towards mankind. 



This imposing animal makes its appearance in art and 

 literature very early. Frequent mention is made of it in 

 the Cuneiform tablets and Hebrew Scriptures. In Pen- 

 taur's Egyptian Epic upon the War of Rameses II. against 

 the Cheta or Hittites, lions are said to have accompanied 



