He will approach him, push him out of the way with his shoulder, cross his path every other minute, and amuse himself with him in various ways, until at last he devours his victim already half dead with terror. There is really nothing incredible in the facts thus stated by the Arabs. The ascendancy of courage over animals is indisputable. The professional robbers who roam abroad at night, armed to the teeth, instead of shunning the lion, cry out to him if they meet with him: "I am not what thou seekest. I am a robber like thyself; pass on, or, if it please thee, let us rob in company." It is said that the lion sometimes follows them, and attempts an assault on the _douar_ towards which they are bending their steps. It is even affirmed that this good understanding between the robbers and the lions frequently displays itself in a striking manner. Robbers have been seen, when taking their meals, to treat the lions as other people treat their dogs, and throw to them at a certain distance the feet and entrails of the animals they themselves are eating. Women likewise have been known successfully to have recourse to intrepidity in opposing a lion. They have run after him when engaged in carrying off a ewe, and have forced him to let go his prey by giving him a shower of blows with a cudgel, crying aloud all the time: "Ah, robber! son of a robber!" The Arabs say that the lion is seized with shame, and makes off as quickly as possible. This trait shows that in the eyes of the Arabs the lion is a peculiar sort of creature midway between men and beasts, which, by reason of its strength, appears to them to be endowed with a special order of intelligence. The following legend, intended to explain how it is that the lion allows a sheep to escape him more easily than any other prey, is a confirmation of this belief. Enumerating one day the various feats his strength enabled him to accomplish, the lion remarked: "_An sha Allah_—if it be the will of Allah—I can carry off a horse without distressing myself. _An sha Allah_, I can carry off a heifer, without being prevented from running by its weight." But when he came to the ewe, he deemed it so much beneath him that he omitted the pious formula, "if it be the will of Allah;" and, to punish him, Allah condemned him to be never able to do more than drag it along.