| 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 |
| 1 | 23 | 47 | 70 | 93 |
|
www.freeclassicebooks.com
I had never hoped or expected to see a living lion, tiger, or elephant--using the
common terms that were familiar to the ancients, since they seem to me less
unwieldy than those now in general use among us--and so it was with sentiments
not unmixed with awe that I stood gazing at this regal beast as, above the carcass
of his kill, he roared out his challenge to the world.
So enthralled was I by the spectacle that I quite forgot myself, and the better to
view him, the great lion, I had risen to my feet and stood, not fifty paces from
him, in full view.
For a moment he did not see me, his attention being directed toward the
retreating elephant, and I had ample time to feast my eyes upon his splendid
proportions, his great head, and his thick black mane.
Ah, what thoughts passed through my mind in those brief moments as I stood
there in rapt fascination! I had come to find a wondrous civilization, and instead
I found a wild-beast monarch of the realm where English kings had ruled. A lion
reigned, undisturbed, within a few miles of the seat of one of the greatest
governments the world has ever known, his domain a howling wilderness, where
yesterday fell the shadows of the largest city in the world.
It was appalling; but my reflections upon this depressing subject were doomed to
sudden extinction. The lion had discovered me.
For an instant he stood silent and motionless as one of the mangy effigies at
home, but only for an instant. Then, with a most ferocious roar, and without the
slightest hesitancy or warning, he charged upon me.
He forsook the prey already dead beneath him for the pleasures of the delectable
tidbit, man. From the remorselessness with which the great Carnivora of modern
England hunted man, I am constrained to believe that, whatever their appetites
in times past, they have cultivated a gruesome taste for human flesh.
As I threw my rifle to my shoulder, I thanked God, the ancient God of my
ancestors, that I had replaced the hard-jacketed bullets in my weapon with soft-
nosed projectiles, for though this was my first experience with Felis leo, I knew
the moment that I faced that charge that even my wonderfully perfected firearm
would be as futile as a peashooter unless I chanced to place my first bullet in a
vital spot.
Unless you had seen it you could not believe credible the speed of a charging lion.
Apparently the animal is not built for speed, nor can he maintain it for long. But
for a matter of forty or fifty yards there is, I believe, no animal on earth that can
overtake him.
3
2
Page
Quick Jump
|