two lions rushed out and escaped us. The lioness, more seriously wounded than I thought, never came. I had failed to get a lion, but I felt satisfied none the less, because the lions had likewise failed to get me. That one moment in that day, when I saw the lioness in the air, I'll never forget, for I realized that death was but an instant away.
From that time until now I have seen a great many lions, shot some, and handled nearly fifty specimens, so that I have made a fairly extended study of the measurements and anatomy of the king of beasts. I have tried also to study his living characteristics and habits, but that is much more difficult. After all, perhaps the most impressive thing about a lion is his foreleg. The more you know of elephants the more you regard the elephant's trunk. The more you know of lions, the more you respect the lion's foreleg and the great padded and clawed weapon at the end of it. It is perhaps the best token of the animal's strength. It is probably two or three times as powerful in proportion to weight as the arm of a man. He can kill a man with one blow of his paw. His other weapon, his jaw, is strong enough to break a zebra's neck at one bite. These are a rather rough measure of an animal's strength, but they give some idea of it.
There is a record which says that a lion has dragged an African buffalo fifty yards. A buffalo weighs at least three times as much as a lion. I have never had evidence of this much "pulling power" but I have known of many instances of lions dragging zebras
