98 THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



This curious fear which many people have of 

 comparatively harmless animals, though quite 

 indifferent to others larger and more danger- 

 ous, seems to call for explanation. Earl 

 Roberts, hero of a hundred fights, is often de- 

 scribed as being afraid of a cat ; and I recollect 

 a case of a lady lion-tamer, who played with 

 bears and lions as if they had been so many 

 kittens, confessing that she ran in terror from 

 a blackbeetle ! This only shows how difficult 

 it is to call anyone either brave or cowardly 

 without closer inquiry. Fancy anyone who 

 happened to see the hero of Kandahar shrink 

 from a cat calling him a coward ! (As a matter 

 of fact I have his own authority for the correc- 

 tion Lord Roberts is not afraid of cats, but 

 merely has an intense dislike of them.) Fancy, 

 even, making the same mistake about a lady 

 who toyed with lions, merely because you 

 happened to see her in full flight before a cock- 

 roach ! 



It is not often that one comes across a story 

 in which the tiger is written of with sympathy, 

 as a fellow-creature and not as vermin, but I 

 am able to include one such view, for which I 

 have to thank Mr. Edwin Arnold. 



" Sometimes," writes Mr. Arnold, " I fancy 

 the wild animals know more about human 

 nature than we know of theirs. All the wild 



