Mr. Gordon Cumming describes two encounters with leopards, one of which was nearly attended with fatal consequences: "On the 17th," says he, "I was attacked with acute rheumatic fever, which kept me to my bed, and gave me excruciating pain. Whilst I lay in this helpless state, Mr. Orpen and Present, who had gone up the river to shoot sea cows, fell in with an immense male leopard, which the latter wounded very baldly. They then sent natives to camp, to ask me for dogs, of which I sent them a pair. In about an hour the natives came running to camp, and said that Orpen was killed by the leopard. On further inquiry, however, I found that he was not really killed, but frightfully torn and bitten about the arms and head. They had rashly taken up the spoor on foot, the dogs following behind them, instead of going in advance. The consequence of this was, that they came right upon the leopard before they were aware of him, when Orpen fired and missed him. The leopard then sprang on his shoulders, and dashing him to the ground lay upon him, howling and lacerating his hands, arms, and head most fearfully. Presently the leopard permitted Orpen to rise and come away. Where were the gallant Present and all the natives, that not a man of them moved to assist the unfortunate Orpen? According to an established custom among all colonial servants, the instant the leopard sprang, Present discharged his piece in the air, and then dashing it to the ground he rushed down the bank and jumped into the river, along which he swam some hundred yards before he would venture on _terra firma_. The natives, though numerous and armed, had likewise fled in another direction."