While trekking through Cape Colony, to see everybody and everything for himself, Sir George was often able to be the keen sportsman. Before his camp was awake, of a morning, he would make a bowl of black coffee, shoulder his rifle, and start off, with a couple of bush-boys for gillies. He would return in the forenoon, deal with his work as Pro- Consul until the evening, and then, perhaps, seek another shot. Or, if his people were on the move, he might sally from them at one point, and rejoin them later. Deer of various sorts were not scarce, and he kept the camp larder furnished with fresh meat. The Mahomedans, among his motley following, ate with relish the product of his rifle. 'They trusted me,' he dwelt on that, 'to say "In the name of the Lord," when a beast was killed, so observing the Mahomedan rite. They would not have eaten of its flesh, had they not known that their belief was expressed, "You are not to destroy one of the Creator's creatures, except by His permission." Whenever Mahomedans were with me, I undertook to observe the rule, nor did I ever fail.' One. sees, in that fact of chance mention, another evidence of how Sir George came to be such a force among the raw men of the earth. He had the genius for taking pains to understand them, and thus, even unwittingly, made them his disciples. Just, he touched the spot. In his reign at the Cape, the lion was still rampant far south of the Zambesi. Twice, while hunting, he got on the trail of the monarch, but he never slew him. A leopard would skulk into the demesne of Table Mountain itself, and be ingloriously trapped. The lion made other sport, lying on a high place while it was day, and going forth to roam at dark. Sir George went to the Bible for the character sketch of the lion, in particular to the Psalms: Thou makest darkness, and it is night; Wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey, And seek their meat from God: The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, And lay them down in their dens. There was a hill, with a wide outlook of plain, and from it, the lesser wild animals at feed, might be marked for the gloaming. It was covert wherein the lion could abide, to lie in wait, a secret lurking-place. Up the back of this hill climbed Sir George, eye and ear on the alert, for one suspected to be about. He was about, but already bounding down the rocky face of the ridge, in a hurry to be clear of the hunter. Sir George mounted his horse, eager to cut him off, and rode, break-neck, the path he had already climbed. There the lion galloped, at a kingly swing, heading for the thick bush in the distance. As he neared it, Sir George aimed a forlorn shot, which proved a farewell salute. He dismounted, and waded through the growth, to the concern of his Kaffir boy, but the lion was tracked no more.