APPENDICES 425 



[ ? police] to protect you while you take your ease ; with us 

 each unit is a trained and tireless sentinel. I have spoken." 

 With a wild fling of his heels, the whirl of a bushy tail, and 

 amidst a cloud of dust, my shaggy visitor vanished o'er 

 the veld. 



Pondering on this message from another world, the con- 

 clusion suggested itself that other factors had escaped the 

 insight of my brindled friend. First comes, foreknowledge of 

 death ; secondly, another pertinent factor which we humans 

 are wont to diagnose as " nerves '' or, more accurately, the 

 total lack of either in the wild-world. No wild beast is appalled 

 by the knowledge that one day (or one night) he must pay 

 the final debt of Nature. What does fill his life with terror is 

 the fear of loss or restriction of physical freedom or liberty. 



It is the darkest hour. . . . Suddenly the silence is shocked 

 by a rush and an appalling roar. One of his company has 

 paid that penalty caught and killed by a lion. The survivors 

 scatter. But not far. Within 100 yards all halt, all rejoin, await- 

 ing their missing messmate. He never rejoins ; but a subtle, 

 subconscious instinct presently leads the survivors to place a 

 rather wider interval between themselves and such alarms 

 but not (as they see the matter) of death. Then, forgetful of 

 peril, all resume their briefly interrupted feed. Whether these 

 alarmed animals know, or know not, that that particular lion 

 has temporarily ceased to be a beast -of -prey, has ceased to 

 menace their safety, is beyond my introspection to define. In 

 effect, they recognise the fact. 



Next consider " nerves." The lives of all these herbivores 

 are spent in the midst of alarms, exposed day and night to 

 instant danger. The incessant vigilance required to guard 

 against such perils becomes a sort of second nature ; hence no 

 wild-beast is afflicted with "nerves" a distinct advantage over 

 man. Picture as a parallel some prosperous city-merchant 

 obliged, on his daily route to the counting-house, to traverse 

 suburbs infested by hungry hyenas, leopards, wolves . . . with 

 a sprinkling of lions lurking about the wooded squares. A 

 month of such mental anxiety would wear down the most 

 portly Alderman to a- wreck! But not even so would that 

 Alderman be so silly as in a new drab suit (or other sartorial 

 camouflage) to entrust his safety to "colour-protection." 



