CHASE BY THE COLONISTS. 
119 
The <c spoor” of the beast having been discovered, 
it is followed up to its lair, which, though at times 
amongst reeds, rank grass, and the like, is, for the 
most part, in a dense thicket. When the hunters 
have approached to within easy gun-shot of where 
the beast is crouched, or at bay to the dogs, they, 
if on horseback, dismount, and after wheeling their 
steeds about, and “ knee-haltering” them, draw up 
in line, and, at a given signal, pour a broadside into 
the luckless animal. If they are good shots, and the 
distance iuconsiderable, as is generally the case, the 
lion is usually killed outright—or at least placed 
hors de combat; but should their aim have been so 
far erring that he has still the use of his legs, he is 
said almost invariably to “ charge.” In this case, the 
hunters themselves find a pretty safe refuge behind 
the horses which the lion almost invariably attacks 
in the first instance, and one or other of which are 
commonly either severely lacerated, or, it may be, 
pays the penalty of its life; and whilst the enraged 
beast is thus occupied with his victim, the hunters, 
who usually escape scot-free, put an end to his 
existence. 
The better, however, to show the manner in 
which the lion is hunted by the colonists, I will 
give Thompson’s description of a chase after that 
animal, in which he himself took part : 
ce I was then residing,” he writes, u on my farm, 
or location, at Barion’s River, in the neighbourhood 
of which numerous heads of large game, and conse¬ 
quently beasts of prey, are abuudant. One night a 
lion, who had previously purloined a few sheep out 
