MY FIRST EXPERIENCE IN LION HUNTING. 253 



more sleep and no more security. It will suffice if you 

 come to our douars, and we will give you tlie half of all we 

 nave." 



I endeavored to make my audience understand that my 

 presence could not intimidate the lion, and that if he had not 

 roared during the nights that I was in the country, it was 

 only owing to his good pleasure, and that if he came back 

 when I was gone it was merely because he had so chosen to 

 act. But what are explanations worth with a people as 

 superstitious as the Arabs. All my reasoning did not alter 

 their convictions. At last an Arab, whom I recognized by 

 his pure language, his importance of bearing, and the chaplet 

 he constantly carried in his white hands, as one of the wise 

 men of the country, arose and said : 



" For a long time every one has been speaking of a Roman 

 who had the reputation of a lion hunter, and they spoke of 

 his blinds on the hills of Guelma. While he remained at a 

 distance, or followed the lion after the fashion of the Arabs, 

 we mocked his pretensions ; pardon the doubt that may have 

 offended you, oh seignior. It was because we know how both 

 the lion and man are created, and that the prophet has told 

 us, ' God has given to man the strength of a man, but to the 

 lion the strength of forty men, in order that he might make 

 us remember that .all return to God that made them. 1 After- 

 wards when we heard that this stranger was among us, hunt- 

 ing the lion without blind or fort, eye to eye, we thought him 

 a dead man. We were afraid that his kindred would 

 hold us responsible for his blood, so we consulted the wise 

 men who know all things, and the wise men said to us : 



" { God is great, and Mahomet is His prophet, and he can 

 do what he listeth. This man, who comes from beyond seas, 

 is not a Roman, but a servant of God. If he waits for the 

 lion, eye to eye, 'tis because his heart is of steel and his eye of 

 fire. God made him thus to bow down those who are strong 

 in themselves. The lion will fly from his presence as we fly 



