280 GAME AND OXEN. [1698. 



Whale-bone. I'll say nothing of Canielions which are 

 common in this Country, unless that it is not true that they 

 live without eating, which we vulgarly call living upon the 

 Air. They live upon Flies, and such like little Creatures. 



The ordinary Game here are Partridges,^ both Eed, Grey, 

 and White, and very large and fat Pheasants, Woodcock 

 and Turtle-Doves. On these for the most part the Inhabi- 

 tants Subsist. The New-Comers to the Colony are forbid to 

 kill any of their Cattle, till they have paid a certain Duty 

 to the Company. 



The Oxen are of three kinds, all pretty large, and very 

 swift. One sort have a bunch upon their Backs, another 

 have their Horns hanging down, and a third sort have theirs 

 extreamly elevated, and as fine as I have seen in South- 

 Britain about London. 



Some years before I came to the Cape, a Lion^ of mon- 

 strous size had leap'd over into a wall'd Enclosure near the 

 Port, and ha^'ing strangled an Ox, carry'd him almost whole 

 over the same Wall to the TaUe Mountain ; I say almost 

 whole, because I dare not affirm it was entirely so, tho' I 

 have every body's word for it. Next day they went to hunt 



1 Governor Wilhem Adriaan vau der Stel successfully acclimatised 

 partridges and pheasants in Robben Island soon after Leguat left. 

 (Cf. Theal, /. c, p. 30.) 



' With respect to the great strength of the lion there can be no doubt. 

 Livingstone writes : " The immense masses of muscle around its jaws, 

 shoulders, and forearms, proclaim tremendous force. They would seem, 

 however, to be inferior in power to those of the Indian tiger. Most of 

 those feats of strength that I have seen performed by lions, such as the 

 taking away of an ox, were not carrying, but dragging or trailing the 

 carcase along the ground ; they have sprung on some occasions on to 

 the hind quarters of a horse, but no one has ever seen them on the 

 withers of a giraffe. They do not mount on the hind quarters of an 

 eland even, but try to tear him down with their claws. Messrs. Oswell 

 and Yardon once saw three lions endeavouring to drag down a buffalo, 

 and they were unable to do so for a time, though he was then mortally 

 wounded by a two-ounce ball." (Livingstone, Travels in South Africa, 

 p. 139.) 



