THE CAPE LION. 19 
in despite of all that has been said on the subject, is by 
no means his natural characteristic. 
“ At the time,” says Mr. Burchell, in his admirable 
Travels in Southern Africa, “ when men first adopted 
the Lion as the emblem of courage, it would seem that 
they regarded great size and strength as indicating it; 
but they were greatly mistaken in the character they had 
given of this indolent skulking animal.” ‘That an animal 
which seldom attacks by open force, but, stealing along 
with cautious and noiseless tread, silently approaches 
his victim, conceals himself in treacherous ambush, and 
at length, when he imagines his prey to be fairly within 
his reach, bounds forth upon him with an overwhelming 
leap, crushes him beneath the tremendous weight of his 
irresistible paw, tears him piece-meal with his talons, 
and, after having surfeited on his horrid meal, returns 
into the depths of his solitary concealment to sleep 
away the hours until his satiated appetite shall be again 
renewed, and his craving maw stimulate him to fresh 
exertion,—that such an animal should ever have been 
regarded as the type of courage and the emblem of 
magnanimity would indeed be most astonishing, were it 
not that men have in all ages been too prone to flatter 
superior power, and to offer at the shrine of greatness 
that homage which is due only to the good. 
True it is that on some occasions the Lion has been 
known, in the capriciousness of his disposition, to suffer 
his prostrate prey to escape but little injured from his 
clutch ; but these instances are of rare occurrence, and 
may safely be referred either to his natural indolence, 
when excited neither by hunger nor by provocation, or 
to that intellectual debasement which among brutes is 
C2 
