ARAB FASHION OF HUNTING THE LION. 65 



Suddenly he hears a sound like the clicking of the lock 

 of a gun ; without moving a step from his place, he crouches 

 on his belly, and with his piercing eye scans every bush or 

 stone that might conceal a foe. 



At this instant his view is obscured by a cloud of smoke, 

 and his ears stunned with the report of guns and the loud 

 cries of the Arabs. His body pierced with a dozen balls, 

 bounds and writhes like a serpent. While he is springing 

 from bush to bush, the hunters, from their secure position, 

 hurl at him their curses and bullets with equal force, until 

 he catches sight of one of them in his leafy fortress, and then 

 springing against the tree with desperate leaps, he falls at its 

 feet, under the weight of the balls that pierce him, and yields 

 his last breath with a far resounding roar of impotent rage. 



No one is ever injured in this cowardly warfare, except 

 now and then, on some rare occasion, when some luckless 

 hunter has taken his place in a tree not sufficiently strong or 

 high to resist the leaps and momentum of the animal. 



So hunt the Chegatmas, but as their manner of hunting 

 lacks the nobility and the danger of the encounters of the 

 the Ouled Meloul and Ouled Cessi, so do they lack their 

 reputation among their comrades, and their esteem with all 

 true hunters. 



