20 THE TOWER MENAGERIE. © 
the usual concomitant of increased bulk and formidable 
strength. But to conclude from such whims and freaks, 
unaccountable as they may sometimes appear, that he is 
actuated by feelings of mercy, or by the natural impulse 
of a generous mind, would be about as reasonable as it 
would be to assume from the instances which are recorded 
of the justice and generosity of a Tamerlane or a Tippoo, 
that those monsters of sanguinary cruelty were in reality 
the mildest and most merciful of despots. 
We have said that the Lion generally chooses the 
night for his excursions; and this is in fact the only 
time at which he ventures to approach the habitations of 
man, from which he will frequently carry off horses or 
oxen, apparently with the greatest ease, and almost with- 
out seeming to be incumbered by his burthen. Beyond 
the precincts of European civilization, and out of the 
reach of the dreaded rifle, he will sometimes penetrate 
into the very hut of the Bushman, and prey upon its 
human inhabitants. It is even stated, and on very 
respectable authority, that in some of the most distant 
kraals, or. villages, those wretched people purposely 
expose the old and the infirm among them in such 
situations as they consider most open to attack, as the 
Lion’s share, in the expectation that he will instinctively 
seize upon those who are first thrown in his way. When, 
however, the Lion finds his appetite thus easily satiated, 
it is said that he is sure to return night after night to 
the kraal for a fresh victim; until the miserable remnant 
of its inhabitants at length find it absolutely necessary 
to quit the ground, and to seek a precarious safety in 
flight. . 
In the day-time, when pressed by hunger, the Lion 
