U LIFE OF DA VII) LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



passed at which I fired, and slowly followed the course it took; after advancing 

 a short distance, I saw a leopard staring at me from between the forked 

 branches of a tree, behind which his long spotted body was concealed, twisting 

 and turning his tail like a cat just going to spring upon his prey. This I 

 knew was a critical moment, not having a shot of ball in my gun. I moved 

 about as if in search of something in the grass, taking care to retreat at the 

 same time. After getting, as I thought, a suitable distance to turn my back, 

 I moved somewhat more quickly, but in my anxiety to escape what was 

 behind, I did not see what was before, until startled by treading on a large 

 Cobra de Capella serpent asleep on the grass. It instantly twirled its body 

 round my leg on which I had nothing but a thin pair of trousers, when I 

 leaped from the spot, dragging the venomous and enraged reptile after me, 

 and while in the act of throwing itself into a position to bite, without turning 

 round, I threw my piece over my shoulder and shot it. Taking it by the 

 tail, I brought it to my people at the waggons, who, on examining the bags 

 of poison, asserted that had the creature bitten me, I could never have reached 

 the waggons. The serpent was six feet long." 



The African leopard, which grows to a size frequently not much inferior 

 to a small tiger, is a much more dangerous foe than the lion ; because it gives 

 no warning of its presence. It is generally encountered among trees, seldom 

 venturing out upon the plain, unless to stalk any of the animals it preys upon. 

 Its favourite position is on the thick branch of a great tree, from which it 

 drops upon its prey, which is all unconscious of its proximity. When 

 wounded, they turn upon the hunter with terrible fury, and fight until they 

 drop dead. The sheep and cattle folds of the settlers suffer from its visits, 

 and the cattle of the native tribes, and not unfrequently the children and 

 adults, fall a prey to this savage and blood-thirsty animal. A single leopard 

 has been known to enter a sheep fold and kill dozens of sheep before its thirst 

 for blood was satiated. In this, as we have already pointed out, it differs from 

 the lion, who kills only one of a herd in a single visit. 



Sechele, the chief of the tribe of Bakwains, to which tribe Livingstone 

 attached himself, was a remarkable man, as had also been his father and 

 grandfather before him ; the latter was a great traveller, and was the first 

 to tell his people of the existence of a race of white men. During his 

 father's life, those two extraordinary travellers, Dr. Cowan and Captain 

 Donovan, lost their lives in his territory, and were supposed to have been 

 murdered by the Bakwains until Livingstone learned from Sechele that they 

 had died from fever in descending the river Limpopo, after they had been 

 hospitably entertained by his father and his people. At that time the coun- 

 try was rich in cattle and pasturage, as water was more abundant. The 

 country in Central and Southern Africa is so rapidly under-going a change 

 through the drainage caused by the disruption of the soil carrying off the 



