These manoeuvres, added to the distance he
had already traversed, were very fatiguing; and
hunger (he had eaten nothing for the best
part of a day) mastered his usual energy.
In that state of weakness, even if he came up
with the creature, he would have encountered
her at great disadvantage. He therefore
gave up the pursuit for the present, and
returned to Batna to take a three days' rest,
with the firm determination of returning to the
charge. He calculated, Fabius-like, that, in the
same proportion as, and while, he was regaining
strength, the enemy would be losing hers, under
the combined effects of pain and loss of blood.
She did lose some, but had enough remaining
to make her a formidable adversary. The final
result hung upon a straw—the second barrel of
his second gun, which broke her spine, although
the head had been aimed at.

Good-for-nothing horses, mules, and donkeys,
he "utilises" by employing them as lion-bait.
When he speaks of the "poor animal" tied to a
stake to attract the marauder, and there await
his fate, it sounds as if a humane angler were
to talk of "the poor worm" he was impaling on
his hook. In those cases, however, the lion
inflicts a merciful death. One blow or bite at the
throat, one long-drawn draught of blood, and all
is over.

After he had slaughtered a couple of
unprotected cubs, the parents, unconscious of their
bereavement, came to feast on what had been
their offspring's ruin. And their restless
movements, "their powerful voices, which vomited
imprecations and threats," made M. Chassaing
suspect—very—naturally that they had found
their little darlings wounded. All he got by a
fortnight's sojourn in the valley of Ourton, was
"an indigestion of almost continual rain and
snow." The sight of a fine lioness, followed by
three respectable cubs, relighted all his wonted
fire. The idea of making a double shot took
full possession of his soul. And he certainly
would have made it (for they bit at the bait-
horse famously); but the shouts of an Arab,
driving before him an impertinent donkey that
wouldn't go, put "my animals" to flight. Had
he sold the skins before he shot the lions?
The reader is therefore left by the author to
picture his bitter disappointment. For ten
successive days he took every means of meeting
"this interesting family;" but they were shy
of his acquaintance; the moon was in the wane,
and he was obliged to return to Batna,
" bredouille," in familiar French; " re infectâ" in
Livian Latin; and sold, done, dished, or diddled,
in homely vernacular English.

In the same way, he looks on the Arabs'
dishonest tricks with an eye of fun rather than of
severity. His language is of pleasing plainness.
They are, to a supreme degree, 1me
ingrates, 2do liars, 3no thieves.

M. Chassaing has taken lion-shooting pupils,
in limited number. And if any gentleman, tired
of pulling harmless salmon out of Norwegian
streams, or of shooting tame reindeer on
Lapland hills, aspire to some more herculean and
philanthropic task, he cannot do better than
seek the favour—not accorded to every one—of
M. Chassaing's protection and training. Of
the few so patronised, was the Prince de
Windischgratz. One day, when master and pupil
were breakfasting together under canvas, in his
little farm at El-Mader, they saw, in one of his
barley-fields, a troop of sixteen horses and mules
also breakfasting, with appetites sharpened by
a previous fast. As soon as might be, the beasts
and their owner were brought, before the
proprietor of the barley, who inflicted, more as a
warning than as a payment for the damage, a
fine of two francs per head. Like all Arabs in
similar case, the man vowed he was poor, and
had no such money. The penalty was reduced to
twenty francs, with the further declaration that
it would not be pocketed, but divided amongst
the Arabs who had captured the animals.
During the discussion, the prince, pitying the
delinquent, rose from table and slipped into his
hand a twenty-franc piece. At which the Arab
instantly returned to the charge; offering an
indemnity of ten francs only, swearing by all
his saints that it was more than enough, and
that it was every farthing he had in the world.

A few days afterwards, they were searching
for game on the banks of a river which was
greatly swollen by the melting snows.
Suddenly, all the Arabs rushed, in violent excitement,
to the brink of the stream. "Quick!"
said the prince. "Somebody has fallen in, and
will be drowned." They galloped to the spot,
and inquired what had happened. No answer.
Perceiving a woman on the other side, who
wept and sobbed as if her heart would break,
they crossed the water; and there an old man
informed them that a six months' old colt had
tumbled in and was carried away. The prince
asked Chassaing the amount of the loss. It being
valued at twenty francs, he took out a napoleon
and gave it to the woman, who, during her
lamentations, incessantly tore her cheeks with her
nails. She ceased her weeping to take the money,
and then recommenced her wailing and woe.

The reason of this is, that by the loudness of
their lamentations and the depth of their self-
inflicted scratches, the Arabs judge of the degree
of interest which their better halves or quarters
take in their affairs.

While perusing M. Chassaing's narrative, one
is struck with the rigorous weather he encountered.
Our sign's of Red and Golden Lions, our
exhibitions of pictures in front of travelling
menageries, our thousand-and-one illustrative
woodcuts, all agree in representing lions either
reposing in caverns with a genial and oven-like
atmosphere, or basking in a torrid landscape
where eggs would hatch spontaneously, if they
did not first roast or fry. Never do our popular
artists represent a lion under circumstances
which might render an umbrella convenient, or a
cloak an agreeable accessory. When reading,
therefore, of leonine sport, we are prepared for
stinging sunshine and stifling siroccos—we hope
M. Chassaing was prepared for them too—for
scorching days and close steamy nights, with the
air as full of sharp-set mosquitoes as a hive,
before swarming, is full of bees; but we were