204 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



round the camp, killed and ate it, and was next day 

 shot by an ingenious trap, made by tying a rifle to 

 posts, and fastening a string to the trigger, which the 

 lion struck when revisiting its "kill." The un- 

 sportsmanlike method of compassing its death is 

 excused by Captain Millais on the obvious ground 

 of necessity. This lion was ten feet long from the 

 tip of the nose to the tip of the tail, was in perfect 

 health, and immensely formidable. But besides the 

 " waggon and kraal business," which occupied it at 

 the time of its last attack, it had taken to killing 

 native women when game and native goats were scarce 

 and travelling teams had not yet come up-country. 

 Six women had been killed by it from one village. 



If, as seems probable, the animal fear of man was 

 acquired and is not natural to their minds, it is not 

 very clear how the early tribes of men, when the 

 larger carnivorous animals were far more numerous 

 than now, escaped destruction and survived long 

 enough to impress on the animal world the sense of 

 fear by which man now dominates it. Regarded 

 merely as a conflict between one class of animal and 

 another, the result should not have been doubt- 

 ful. Man ought to have disappeared from the face 

 of the earth, or, in any case, to have retreated to 

 remote strongholds in regions not frequented by 

 the beasts. That he did not do so, but turned 

 the tables on the better equipped offensive crea- 

 tures, is fair presumptive evidence that original man 

 never was on a level with the animals in intelli- 

 gence, but was equipped with the predominant 



