SOUTHERN AFRICA. 129 
We found encamped on the borders of the falt-water lake a 
farmer and his whole family, confifting of fons and daughters, 
and grandchildren ; of oxen, cows, fheep, goats, and dogs. 
He was moving to a new habitation ; and, in addition to his 
live-ilock, carried with him his whole property in two wag- 
gons. He advifed us to make faft our oxen to the waggons, 
as two of his horfes had been devoured on the preceding night 
by lions. This powerful and treacherous animal is very com- 
mon in the thickets about the fait pan ; treacherous, becaufe it 
feldom makes an open attack, but, like the reft of the feline 
genus, lies in ambufh till it can conveniently fpring upon its 
prey. Happy for the peafantry, the Hottentots, and thofe ani- 
mals that are the objeiis of its deftruition, were its noble and 
generous nature, that fo oft has fired the imagination of poets, 
realized, and that his royal paw difdained to ftain itfelf in the 
blood of any fleeping creature. The lion, in faft, is one of the 
moft indolent of all the hearts of prey, and never gives himfelf 
the trouble of a purfuit unlefs hard prefTed with hunger. On our 
arrival at a farm-houfe on the banks of the Zwart-kop's river, 
a lion had juft been (hot by a trap-gun; and fliortly after one 
of the Hottentots had brought down a large male buffalo. This 
animal (the bos caffer of the Sj/iema Naturc^e) is the ftrongeft and 
the fierceft of the bovine genus. Nature feems to have defigned 
him as a model for producing extraordinary powers. The 
horns at the bafe are each twelve or thirteen inches broad, and 
are feparated only by a narrow channel, which fills up with age, 
and gives to the animal a forehead completely covered with a 
rugged mafs of horn as hard as rock. From the bafe they 
diverge backwards, and are incurved towards the points, which 
S are 
