CAPRICIOUS TEMPER. 
109 
us. In this position he looked truly magnificent, 
roaring with mingled joy and anger. His powerful 
tongue was licking in blissful happiness the hand I 
had given up to him, whilst his enormous paws were 
softly trying to draw me towards him. 
tc If anyone else attempted to come near, Hubert 
broke out into a most appalling fury; but as soon 
as they retired he became calm and affectionate as 
before. 
t6 1 cannot express how painful our parting was on 
that day. Twenty times I returned to try to make 
him comprehend that he should see me again, and 
every time I withdrew he shook the whole gallery 
with his tremendous bounds and roars.” 
When in confinement, however, the temper of the 
lion is somewhat capricious ; and submissive as he 
may be, as a rule, to his master or keeper, but little 
at times would seem to rouse his anger, when, 
from the most docile, he all at once becomes the 
most savage and ferocious of beasts, of which many 
lamentable instances are on record. 
Labat, for instance, makes mention of a gentle¬ 
man who kept a lion in his chamber and employed 
a servant to attend it, but the latter, as usual, mixed 
his caresses with blows. This ill-judged association 
continued for some time. One morning the gentle¬ 
man was awakened by an unusual noise in his room, 
and drawing the curtains, he perceived if to proceed 
from the lion, which was growling over the body of 
the unhappy man, whom he had just killed, and whose 
head he had separated from his body. The terror and 
confusion of the gentleman may be readily conceived; 
