We now come to the sport that is really worthy to sharpen the intelligence and inflame the souls of warriors. The Arab hunter acts upon the aggressive with the lion. In this daring enterprise there is all the more merit, because in Africa the lion is a formidable monster, regarding whom there exist many mysterious and terrible legends, with which an awe-struck superstition surrounds his dread Majesty. With that keenness of insight which characterises them, the Arabs have made a series of observations on the subject of the lion that are worthy of being collected and preserved. In the daytime the lion rarely seeks to attack man. Very commonly, indeed, if a traveller happens to pass near him, he turns aside his head and affects not to see him. At the same time, if any one, walking close to the bush in which he is couched, be rash enough to cry aloud _ra hena_—"he is there!"—the lion will at once spring upon his denouncer and the disturber of his repose. As night comes on, his humour completely changes. When the sun has set, it is perilous to venture into a wild, woody, and broken country. It is there the lion lies in ambush—it is there he is met on the path-ways, which he intercepts by barring all further advance with his body. The Arabs thus describe some of the nocturnal scenes which are continually happening. If a solitary individual, a courier, traveller, or letter-carrier, chancing to meet a lion, possess a courage of the highest temper, he will walk straight towards the animal, brandishing his sword or gun, but carefully abstaining from using the one or the other. He simply cries out: "Oh, the robber! the highway-man! the son of a mother who never said No! Dost thou think to frighten me? Thou canst not know, then, that I am so-and-so, the son of so-and-so? Get up, and let me proceed on my journey." The lion waits till the man has come close up to him, and then goes off to lie down again a thousand paces farther on. The traveller has to endure a long series of terrific trials. Each time that he quits the path, the lion disappears, but only for an instant. Directly afterwards he again presents himself, and all his movements are accompanied by horrible noises. He breaks off innumerable branches with his tail. He roars, howls, growls, and emits gusts of poisonous breath. He plays with the subject of his fantastic and manifold attacks, and keeps him constantly suspended between fear and hope, like a cat playing with a mouse. If a man involved in such a difficulty does not allow his courage to fail him, if—to use an Arab phrase—he succeeds in firmly holding his soul, the lion will finally leave him, and seek his fortune elsewhere. But if, on the contrary, the latter perceives that he has to deal with a man whose countenance betrays his fear, whose voice trembles, and who dares not articulate a word, he repeats over and over again, in order to terrify him still more, the manœuvre above described.