ARAB FASHION OF HUNTING THE LION. 33 



coming banquet, the wives prepare the couscoussou, and high 

 feast is held until daybreak. 



During this time the lion, who at first had made several 

 immense leaps to get out of the ditch, becomes resigned to 

 his fate. He hears all the noise, and the jabber of strange 

 voices, and jeers, and laughter. He knows that his hour is 

 come, and that he is doomed, without hope of succor from 

 his kindred, to die amid insults and blows ; but for all that he 

 will receive the bullets of his foes without the winking of an 

 eye, or a murmur of complaint, and die, if die he must, 

 as he has lived, the bravest being from the Niger to the 

 sea. 



With the earliest light the Arabs from the neighboring- 

 encampments, invited by the sound of the guns and the 

 hurrahs, pour in with their wives, children, and dogs, fearful 

 lest any of the performance should occur before their arrival. 

 It is a glorious thing to make an enemy suffer when he can 

 cause us no more harm, and when we can strike and insult 

 him from a safe distance. 



It is to be remarked that on all these occasions the women 

 and the children, but particularly the women, are the most 

 cruel and fierce. Whether this is the characteristic of their 

 savageness or a trait of their weakness, I cannot answer : but 

 I hope it is not the same with the women of France, and that 

 there are to be found among them, those who will sue for 

 grace for the lion, if it is even that he may be attacked in 

 coming out of the pit, fairly, face to face. 



At last the day so anxiously expected dawns on the Arab 

 camp with its circle of tents, and crowds of turbaned men, and 



