ARAB FASHION OF HUNTING THE LION. 39 



of the gentry huntsmen, here the children of the desert 

 assemble around an open fire kindled on the bleak mountain 

 side. Instead of the beautiful carriages and brilliant dresses 

 which attract the curious and impertinent, there come 

 together quietly, from mountain douar or desert tent, about 

 fifty men, whose united undress would not equal in value the 

 livery of one keeper of hounds. Each one comes to the 

 signal with his gun thrown over his shoulder, a pistol and 

 dagger at his girdle, and takes his place in the circle that 

 surrounds the fire. A dozen dogs, with long rough hair and 

 sullen countenances, wander around the circle, amusing 

 themselves with fighting and tearing each other, without 

 their masters even noticing their battles. I have seen a 

 dog killed and eaten by his fellows, without a single Arab 

 present deigning to quit his place, or to turn his attention 

 from the subject under consideration, though it should be 

 added that this occurred at the moment that the spies were 

 making their report of two old lions, whose traces they had 

 discovered not far off. 



The moment of the arrival of the men who have been 

 examining the woods, is one of breathless interest — for they 

 are not treating with a wolf, or a stag, or a wild boar that is 

 killed by a shot from fowlers, who have taken the place of 

 hunters in these later days. But the challenge is given to an 

 animal that has the strength of forty men, the power of whose 

 teeth and claws some of the members of the hunt are destined 

 to feel ; and many have seen exercised on the body of some 

 unfortunate relative, seized in the jaws of death, from which 

 all the valor and devotion of his tribe were unavailing to save. 



