we found the marks of the claws on the horse, and a scratch on Mr. O.’s hand.  The horse, on feeling the lion on him, sprang away, and the rider, caught by a wait-a-bit thorn, was brought to the ground and rendered insensible.  His dogs saved him.  Another English gentleman (Captain Codrington) was surprised in the same way, though not hunting the lion at the time, but turning round he shot him dead in the neck.  By accident a horse belonging to Codrington ran away, but was stopped by the bridle catching a stump; there he remained a prisoner two days, and when found the whole space around was marked by the footprints of lions.  They had evidently been afraid to attack the haltered horse from fear that it was a trap.  Two lions came up by night to within three yards of oxen tied to a wagon, and a sheep tied to a tree, and stood roaring, but afraid to make a spring.  On another occasion one of our party was lying sound asleep and unconscious of danger between two natives behind a bush at Mashue; the fire was nearly out at their feet in consequence of all being completely tired out by the fatigues of the previous day; a lion came up to within three yards of the fire, and there commenced roaring instead of making a spring:  the fact of their riding-ox being tied to the bush was the only reason the lion had for not following his instinct, and making a meal of flesh.  He then stood on a knoll three hundred yards distant, and roared all night, and continued his growling as the party moved off by daylight next morning.

Nothing that I ever learned of the lion would lead me to attribute to it either the ferocious or noble character ascribed to it elsewhere.  It possesses none of the nobility of the Newfoundland or St. Bernard dogs.  With respect to its great strength there can be no doubt.  The immense masses of muscle around its jaws, shoulders, and forearms proclaim tremendous force.  They would seem, however, to be inferior in power to those of the Indian tiger.  Most of those feats of strength that I have seen performed by lions, such as the taking away of an ox, were not carrying, but dragging or trailing the carcass along the ground:  they have sprung on some occasions on to the hind-quarters of a horse, but no one has ever seen them on the withers of a giraffe.  They do not mount on the hind-quarters of an eland even, but try to tear him down with their claws.  Messrs. Oswell and Vardon once saw three lions endeavoring to drag down a buffalo, and they were unable to do so for a time, though he was then mortally wounded by a two-ounce ball.*

   * This singular encounter, in the words of an eye-witness,
   happened as follows: