MY FIRST EXPERIENCE IN LION HUNTING. 259 



of the cloud," retorted haughtily Bou-Aziz. " And I was 

 born son of Bou- Rajah." 



" Oh pardon," cried the marauder, abasing himself to the 

 earth, " I know thee by name but have never seen thee, thou 

 are greater than we, and we are but children before thee. 

 Yet believe us, young as we are, we look on the Roman as 

 the lord of the night. Wherever we meet him we give way 

 for him, and he might kill us all without our ever hurting a 

 hair of his head." 



To the great regret of Bou-Aziz, who wanted very much to 

 keep them, I returned the weapons to the men, upon the con- 

 dition that I should not hear from them while in the country, 

 and that they would engage to keep their comrades out of 

 my path under pain of being shot down without pity. 



" Thank you, master," they replied in parting, " the hunter 

 of the lion is equal to the lion, and we are only jackals." A 

 few minutes after, we could hear them calling in the distance, 

 " Bahnadie ba, we are only jackals." 



We still kept on our way, although I had not heard the 

 lion roar for some time, and asked Bou-Aziz what it meant. 

 He said that he was preparing at that moment to attack some 

 douar, but that we would be soon informed of his presence by 

 the sound of the dogs and hurrahs. 



So we continued our course, talking of the adventure we 

 had just met, and I asked Bou-Aziz to explain the use the 

 marauders made of the tree. He said that it was a ruse to 

 approach the douars without being observed, and to escape 

 notice of other gentlemen of the same profession, whom they 

 might encounter in numbers greater than their own. Those 

 sportsmen who have ever made use of the artificial tree, or 

 the walking hut, which is in use in some parts of France, 

 can readily understand the utiiity of such a ruse on the plains 

 of Algeria. 



" But how do they avoid the lions ?" I asked of Bou-Aziz. 



" Will the master harm his own servants ?" he replied. 



