MY FIRST EXPERIENCE IN LION HUNTING. 200 



marched out of the tent, draping himself in the folds of his 

 burnous with a superb majesty. 



A spahi then proposed that I should be placed in the 

 neighborhood of the douar, to wait for the lion when he 

 should come in the evening. With this, all the assembly 

 cried out that I would hurt some of the people A\ith my 

 balls, and that if by chance I should wound the lion, it would 

 make him dreadfully angry ; but if I absolutely intended to 

 offer myself to him, there were many spots visited by his 

 majesty where I could be placed, and where my folly would 

 do harm to nobody. 



I followed my guides towards the hill, and presently they 

 pointed, out to me a rock, surrounded by a heavy thicket 

 that nearly concealed it in gloomy shadows, and told me 

 that there the lion stopped for a moment when coming from 

 his home in the Archioua to visit the scenes of his nightly 

 repasts. I asked if it was possible to visit the Seignior of 

 these domains in his own home ; they laughingly replied 

 that none of them had ever been there, but that if I desired, 

 they could readily put me on the road. Tn about a quarter 

 of an hour more of fast walking, we struck a path of about 

 three feet in width which came out of the woods. 



" Here is the path," exclaimed the Arab who was leading 

 the party ; " this is the road the lord of the manor fol- 

 lows when leaving the woods. There is another the other 

 side of the brook, and both emerge to a point further up the 

 hill. Now, if you wish to make his acquaintance, all you 

 haye to do is to build a cover for yourself, and then come 

 here at evening with a bait to wait his good pleasure. When 



