342 THE LION KILLER. 



orchard laden with fruit, a garden odorous with flowers, 

 and a clear spring that leaped from the earth and murmured 

 down the hills. These were delights that in this sultry clime 

 were worth the wealth of sultans, and gave Lakdar a fortitude 

 perfectly stoical under the attacks of his enemy. 



I found the little camp surrounded by a hedge six feet 

 high and three feet thick, which the lion was accustomed to 

 jump over, and selecting his dinner, carry it off to the woods 

 with the same ease that a fox would seize and carry off a 

 duck from the quacking brood. The first night or two was 

 spent in the park awaiting the coming of the lion, and the 

 day in hunting up all his haunts, but without any success ; he 

 was nowhere to be found. 



" You see," said Lakdar, " you have nothing to do but to 

 come here and the lion runs away, and as soon as you go he 

 will return, and then the rest of my cattle, and my wife and 

 children will all follow the road that the first of my poor 

 oxen have taken." 



" You must take a wife and stay among us," said Lakdar's 

 spouse, " we will show you the prettiest girls in the mountains; 

 you can choose two or three for wives, our tribe will build 

 you a house, and give you a herd of cattle, and then we will 

 have peace in the land." 



Without receiving Madame Lakdar's opinion as perfectly 

 true, yet I will give the history of an occurrence that shows 

 with what fatal determination a lion adheres to his predilec- 

 tion for some favorite camp or herd. There was once a 

 mosque on the old road from Constantine to Batna that went 

 by the name of Jema-el-Bechiva, and its ruined minarets 

 exist to this day. 



The holy men who inhabited this retreat had raised a 

 young lion that was brought in by the Arabs, but after it had 

 nearly attained its growth, the ungrateful scholar finding the 

 path of religion a thorny road suddenly disappeared. 



