approach; and which, so far from provoking conflict, takes advantage of every feature of the country that offers it concealment, or affords it a way of escape from its dreaded persecutor. The Dutchmen in Africa have named the districts in which this animal ranges, the Lion-veldt, and this is a splendid compliment. But they regard the king of beasts as a pest, and do not fear it as a danger, while the natives reverence it as a voice, and a terrible one, but præterea nihil. It was for this same majesty of voice that Ali the Caliph was named the Lion of Allah. In the “Pilgrim’s Progress” it was the sound of the lions that first terrified Faithful and his party, for we are told it had “a hollow voice of roaring;” and it was the same roaring that frightened poor Thisbe to her death. Perhaps then, after all, it is with beasts as it is often with men, that he who roars loudest and oftenest is counted the best in the crowd, and that the lion’s only claim to kingship is in the power of his lungs. If this be so, we can only say, with the duke in the play, “Well roared, lion!”
Another large cat is called the tiger. There is no nonsense about the tiger as there is about the lion. He is not an impostor. Wolves may go about pretending that they are only dogs that have had the misfortune of a bad bringing up, and the lion may swagger round trying to look as if he were something else than a cat; but the tiger never descends to such prevarication, — setting himself up for better than he is, or claiming respect for qualities which he does not possess. There is no ambiguity about anything he does. All his character is on the surface. “I am,” he says, a “thorough going downright wild beast, and if you don’t like me you may lump me; but in the mean while you had better get
