The Horses of the Sahara 43

The Horses of the Sahara 43

We now come to the sport that is really worthy to sharpen the

intelligence and inflame the souls of warriors. The Arab hunter acts

upon the aggressive with the lion. In this daring enterprise there is

all the more merit, because in Africa the lion is a formidable monster,

regarding whom there exist many mysterious and terrible legends, with

which an awe-struck superstition surrounds his dread Majesty. With that

keenness of insight which characterises them, the Arabs have made a

series of observations on the subject of the lion that are worthy of

being collected and preserved.

 

In the daytime the lion rarely seeks to attack man. Very commonly,

indeed, if a traveller happens to pass near him, he turns aside his head

and affects not to see him. At the same time, if any one, walking close

to the bush in which he is couched, be rash enough to cry aloud _ra

hena_—"he is there!"—the lion will at once spring upon his denouncer and

the disturber of his repose. As night comes on, his humour completely

changes. When the sun has set, it is perilous to venture into a wild,

woody, and broken country. It is there the lion lies in ambush—it is

there he is met on the path-ways, which he intercepts by barring all

further advance with his body. The Arabs thus describe some of the

nocturnal scenes which are continually happening. If a solitary

individual, a courier, traveller, or letter-carrier, chancing to meet a

lion, possess a courage of the highest temper, he will walk straight

towards the animal, brandishing his sword or gun, but carefully

abstaining from using the one or the other. He simply cries out: "Oh,

the robber! the highway-man! the son of a mother who never said No! Dost

thou think to frighten me? Thou canst not know, then, that I am

so-and-so, the son of so-and-so? Get up, and let me proceed on my

journey." The lion waits till the man has come close up to him, and then

goes off to lie down again a thousand paces farther on. The traveller

has to endure a long series of terrific trials. Each time that he quits

the path, the lion disappears, but only for an instant. Directly

afterwards he again presents himself, and all his movements are

accompanied by horrible noises. He breaks off innumerable branches with

his tail. He roars, howls, growls, and emits gusts of poisonous breath.

He plays with the subject of his fantastic and manifold attacks, and

keeps him constantly suspended between fear and hope, like a cat playing

with a mouse. If a man involved in such a difficulty does not allow his

courage to fail him, if—to use an Arab phrase—he succeeds in firmly

holding his soul, the lion will finally leave him, and seek his fortune

elsewhere. But if, on the contrary, the latter perceives that he has to

deal with a man whose countenance betrays his fear, whose voice

trembles, and who dares not articulate a word, he repeats over and over

again, in order to terrify him still more, the manœuvre above described.

He will approach him, push him out of the way with his shoulder, cross

his path every other minute, and amuse himself with him in various ways,

until at last he devours his victim already half dead with terror.

 

There is really nothing incredible in the facts thus stated by the

Arabs. The ascendancy of courage over animals is indisputable. The

professional robbers who roam abroad at night, armed to the teeth,

instead of shunning the lion, cry out to him if they meet with him: "I

am not what thou seekest. I am a robber like thyself; pass on, or, if it

please thee, let us rob in company." It is said that the lion sometimes

follows them, and attempts an assault on the _douar_ towards which they

are bending their steps. It is even affirmed that this good

understanding between the robbers and the lions frequently displays

itself in a striking manner. Robbers have been seen, when taking their

meals, to treat the lions as other people treat their dogs, and throw to

them at a certain distance the feet and entrails of the animals they

themselves are eating.

 

Women likewise have been known successfully to have recourse to

intrepidity in opposing a lion. They have run after him when engaged in

carrying off a ewe, and have forced him to let go his prey by giving him

a shower of blows with a cudgel, crying aloud all the time: "Ah, robber!

son of a robber!" The Arabs say that the lion is seized with shame, and

makes off as quickly as possible. This trait shows that in the eyes of

the Arabs the lion is a peculiar sort of creature midway between men and

beasts, which, by reason of its strength, appears to them to be endowed

with a special order of intelligence. The following legend, intended to

explain how it is that the lion allows a sheep to escape him more easily

than any other prey, is a confirmation of this belief. Enumerating one

day the various feats his strength enabled him to accomplish, the lion

remarked: "_An sha Allah_—if it be the will of Allah—I can carry off a

horse without distressing myself. _An sha Allah_, I can carry off a

heifer, without being prevented from running by its weight." But when he

came to the ewe, he deemed it so much beneath him that he omitted the

pious formula, "if it be the will of Allah;" and, to punish him, Allah

condemned him to be never able to do more than drag it along.

 

There are several modes of hunting the lion. When one makes his

appearance in the midst of a tribe, his presence is indicated by a

multitude of signs of all kinds. The earth shakes, as it were, with

roarings. Then a series of losses and accidents take place. A heifer, or

a colt is carried off, or a man is missing. The alarm spreads through

all the tents. The women tremble for their property and for their

children. Lamentations arise on all sides, and the hunters decree the

death of their troublesome neighbour. It is published in the

market-places that on such a day and at such an hour, all who are

capable of joining in the chace, whether on horseback or on foot, must

assemble in arms at an appointed spot. Prior to this, the thicket has

been discovered to which the lion retires during the day. Everything

being ready, the hunters set out, the men on foot leading the way. When

they have arrived within fifty paces of the bush in which they expect to

find the enemy, they halt and await him. Closing up, they form three

deep, the second rank ready to fill up the gaps in the first if succour

be necessary, while the third, firm and compact, and composed of capital

marksmen, forms an invincible reserve. Then commences a strange

spectacle. The front rank begin to insult the lion, and even send a few

balls into his hiding place to make him come out: "Look at him who

boasts of being the bravest of all, and yet dares not show himself

before men! It is not he—it is not the lion—it is a cowardly thief, and

may Allah curse him!" The animal sometimes comes while they are abusing

him in this manner, and, looking round serenely on all sides, yawns and

stretches himself, and appears perfectly insensible to what is passing

around him.

 

One or two balls now hit him, upon which, magnificent in his audacity,

he stalks forth and stands in front of the bush which sheltered him. Not

a word is spoken. The lion roars, rolls his glaring eyes, draws back,

crouches down, again rises up, and by the movements of his tail and body

snaps off all the branches that surround him. The front rank discharge

their pieces, whereupon the monster bounds forward, and generally falls

dead beneath the fire of the second rank, who step forward and fill up

the intervals left in the first. This is the critical moment, for the

lion resigns the contest only when a ball has struck him in the head, or

in the heart. It is no rare thing to see him continue the fight with ten

or a dozen balls through his body. In other words, he is seldom

overpowered until he has killed or wounded some of his foot assailants.

The horsemen who accompany the expedition have nothing to do, so long as

their foe does not quit the broken ground. Their part commences when, as

occasionally happens, the men on foot have succeeded in driving out the

lion upon a plateau, or into the plain. The combat then assumes a new

aspect, full of interest and originality. Each horseman, according to

his hardihood and agility, spurs on his horse at full speed, fires at

the lion as at an ordinary mark, at a short distance, and, wheeling his

horse round the moment he has fired, gallops off to reload his piece

before making a second assault. The lion, attacked on all sides and

wounded at every moment, faces about in every direction, rushes forward,

flees, returns, and falls, but only after a glorious struggle. His

defeat, indeed, must inevitably terminate in his death, for against

horsemen mounted on Arab horses success is impossible. He makes but

three terrific bounds, after which his pace is by no means swift, and an

ordinary horse will distance him without trouble. To form a just idea of

such a combat, it is absolutely necessary to have witnessed one. Every

horseman hurls an imprecation; there is a wild confusion of sounds, the

burnouses fly out, the powder thunders, the hunters crowd together or

scatter widely apart. The lion roars, the balls whistle, and the whole

forms a scene of movement and animation. But notwithstanding all this

tumult, accidents are very unusual. The hunters have little to fear,

unless a fall from their horse throws them under the paw of their enemy,

or—which is more frequent misadventure—they are hit by a friendly but

ill-directed ball.

 

Such is the most picturesque, the most warlike aspect that lion-hunting

assumes. Other measures, however, are sometimes adopted, both more sure

and more speedily efficacious. The Arabs have observed that on the

morrow after he has carried off and devoured sheep or oxen, the lion,

suffering from a weak digestion, remains in his lair, fatigued,

oppressed with sleep, and incapable of moving. When a place that is

usually disquieted with roaring is undisturbed for a whole night, it may

be inferred that the formidable inhabitant who dwells therein is plunged

in this state of lethargy. Upon this, a man of devoted courage,

following the tracks that lead to the covert in which the monster is

concealed, will go up to him, take a steady aim, and shoot him dead upon

the spot with a ball between the two eyes. Kaddour-ben-Mohammed, of the

Oulad-Messelem, a section of the Ounougha, is reputed to have killed

several lions in this manner.

 

Recourse is likewise had to various forms of ambush. The Arabs sometimes

excavate a hole in the path the lion usually takes, and cover it with

thin woodwork, which the animal breaks by its weight and is caught in

the trap. At other times they dig close to a dead body a hole covered by

thick boards, between which a small opening is left to allow the barrel

of a gun to pass through. In this hole, or _melebda_, the hunter squats

down, and when the lion approaches the body, he takes a careful aim and

fires. Not unfrequently the lion, if he has not been struck down, throws

himself on the _melebda_, shatters the barrier, and devours the hunter

behind his demolished rampart. On other occasions, again, a single man

will undertake an adventurous and heroic enterprise, recalling the feats

of chivalry. Si-Mohammed-Esnoussi, a man of approved veracity, who

inhabited the Djebel-Guerzoul, near Tiaret, thus describes his own mode

of going to work:

 

"I used to mount a good horse and proceed to the forest on a bright

moonlight night. In those days I was a capital shot, and my ball never

fell to the ground. Then I began to cry aloud several times, _Ould el

ataïah!_—'Daughter of a mother who yields herself up!'—The lion would

come forth, and direct his steps towards the spot whence issued the cry;

and at that moment I fired at him. Occasionally the same thicket would

contain several lions, who would issue forth all together. If one of

these brutes approached me from behind, I would turn my head and fire at

him over the back of my saddle, and then go off at full gallop in the

fear that I might have missed him. If I was attacked in front, I wheeled

my horse round and repeated the manœuvre."

 

The people of that district affirm that the number of lions killed by

Mohammed-ben-Esnoussi amounted to nearly a hundred. This intrepid hunter

was still alive in the year 1253 [A. D. 1836]. When I saw him, he had

lost his eyesight. May he participate in the mercy of Allah!