Dr. Philip relates a horrible story of a very large Lion recorded at
Cape Town in the year 1705. He was known to have seized a sentry at a
tent, and was pursued and fired at by many persons without effect. Next
morning the Lion walked up a hill _with the man in his mouth_, when
about forty shots were fired at him without hitting him; and it was
perceived by the blood, and a piece of the clothes of the sentry, that
the Lion had taken him away and carried him with him. He was pursued
by a band of Hottentots, one of whom he seized with his claws by the
mantle, when the man stabbed him with an assagai. Other Hottentots
adorned him with their assagais, so that he looked like a porcupine; he
roared and leaped furiously, but was at length shot dead. He had a short
time before carried off a Hottentot and devoured him.
The Bengal or Asiatic Lion is distinguished from that of Southern Africa
principally by the larger size, the more regular and graceful form, the
generally darker colour, and the less extensive mane than the African.
William Harvey, the graceful artist, drew a portrait of a very fine
Bengal Lion, little more than five years old, and then in the Tower
collection, and called by the keepers "the Old Lion;" the magnificent
development of the mane is very striking in this figure.
Maneless Lions have been found on the confines of Arabia, and were
known to Aristotle and Pliny; a maneless Lion is also said to be
represented on the monuments of Upper Egypt. The Lion of Arabia has
neither the courage nor the stature, nor even the beauty, of the Lion of
Africa. He uses cunning rather than force; he crouches among the reeds
which border the Tigris and Euphrates, and springs upon all the feeble
animals which come there to quench their thirst; but he dares not attack
the boar, which is very common there, and flies as soon as he perceives
a man, a woman, or even a child. If he catches a sheep he makes off
with his prey; but he abandons it to save himself when an Arab looks
after him. If he is hunted by horsemen, which often happens, he does
not defend himself unless he is wounded, and has no hope of safety by
flight. In such a case he will fly on a man and tear him to pieces with
his claws, for it is courage more than strength that he wants. Achmed,
Pasha of Bagdad from 1724 to 1747, would have been torn by one, after
breaking his lance in a hunt, if his slave Suleiman, who succeeded him
in the Pashalik, had not come promptly to his succour and pierced with a
blow of his yataghan the Lion already wounded by his master.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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