1 82 THE LAND OF THE LION 



dreadfully. His fine condition will save his life, but I hear 

 his left arm is doomed. 



Two men in the last three months have lost an arm, 

 and almost their lives, riding lions. In both cases the 

 same mistake was made. They pressed the beast too 

 closely. No horse can turn or stop as can a cat. I have 

 seen a cheetah I was "riding" an animal very much 

 faster than any lion, and that can easily outlast one 

 actually stop in its very stride. It was as though its claws 

 were glued to the earth. It did not seem possible that 

 such a sudden halt could be called, by anything that ran. 

 Nor can any other beast show the desperate speed of a cat 

 for a few yards' distance. Mr. Percivale, the game warden 

 of the Protectorate, who has probably ridden more lions 

 than any man in the country, tells me that he, though well 

 mounted, was once almost pulled down % by a lion that he 

 had ridden into cover. He, too, on that occasion, came 

 too close, the lion for some reason or other, dispensed with 

 all the usual preliminaries and rushed at him. He turned 

 his horse as quickly as he could and rode for his life. He 

 had quite fifty yards start, and yet he believes that, had he 

 not fired his heavy revolver into the face of the lion when 

 it was almost on his horse's hind quarters, both he and 

 it would have been pulled down. Mr. Percivale was alone. 

 There was no other horse or hunter near to divide the 

 lion's attention this, perhaps, may account for his very 

 unusually rapid and deadly attack. 



Hoey was attacked by three lionesses, near the Rock. 

 The only provocation he had given them was, that he had 

 shot two hours before, the lion of the band. He was riding 

 back to his camp unarmed, having left his rifle with his 

 gunbearer, who was skinning the lion he had killed. The 

 three saw him, from a distance of quite two hundred yards, 

 and pressed him hard, for a quarter of a mile. He was rid- 

 ing the same fast mule that I rode, and so distanced them. 



