230 
THE LION AND OTHER BEASTS OF PREY 
He leaps towards one so quickly, and apparently so surely, that 
the looker-on shudders for the Hottentot, expecting to see him torn to 
pieces in an instant. But, instead of this, the Hottentot leaps out in 
the twinkling of an eye, and the beast spends his rage on the ground. 
He turns, and leaps towards another, and another, and another, but 
still in vain; he is avoided with the quickness of thought, and he fights 
only with the air. All this time the arrows and spears shower on him 
in the rear. He grows mad with pain; and leaping from one party to 
another of his foes, and tumbling from time to time on the ground, to 
break the arrows and spears that are fastened in him, he foams, yells, 
and roars most terribly. “If the beast is not quickly slain/' says 
Kolben, “he is quickly convinced there is no dealing with so nimble 
an enemy; and then he makes off with all his heels, and having by this 
time a multitude, perhaps, of poisoned arrows and spears in his back, 
the Hottentots let him go freely and follow him at a little distance. 
The poison quickly seizes him, and he runs not far before he falls." 
A Hottentot was out hunting, and perceiving an antelope feeding 
among some bushes, he approached in a creeping posture, and had 
rested his gun over an ant-hill to take a steady aim, when, observing 
that the creature's attention was suddenly and peculiarly excited by 
some object near him, he looked up and perceived with horror that a 
large lion was at that instant creeping forward and ready to spring 
on himself. Before he could change his posture, and direct his aim at 
this antagonist, the lion bounded forward, seized him with his talons, 
and crushed his left hand, as he endeavored to ward him off with it, 
between his savage jaws. In this extremity, the Hottentot had the 
presence of mind to turn the muzzle of his gun, which he still held in 
his right hand, into the lion’s mouth, and then drawing the trigger, 
shot him dead through the brain. He lost his hand, but happily 
escaped any further injury. 
A Boor, named Lucas, was riding across the open plains, near the 
Little Fish River, one morning, about daybreak, and, observing a lion 
at a distance, he endeavored to avoid him by making a wide circuit. 
There were thousands of spring-bucks scattered over the extensive 
flats; but the lion, from the open nature of the country, had probably 
been unsuccessful in hunting. 
