often still it lies in ambush for its victim; and those who have watched a lion under a tamarisk, waiting for the antelope to come browsing by, say there is no difference whatever between its tactics and those of Grimalkin when she lurks under a gooseberry bush for the casual robin. Another fact is that the lion is only bold in the dark. It becomes savage, of course, at all hours, if passers-by take the liberty of wounding it; but during the daytime and on moonlight nights it is, as a rule, so timid that travellers in the Lion-veldt of Africa never even trouble themselves to tether their wagon cattle. Yet this is the King of Beasts.
In what, then, is it kingly? Certainly not in generosity, nor jet in its habits. Kings do not go about catching rats and frogs and insects, nor in their own dominions do they skulk among the undergrowth when in search of a meal. Is it its size? Certainly not; for the elephant is its companion, and the lion never dares to cross the mammoth’s path, confessing by its deference a sense of superiority which other beasts, the lion’s subjects, refuse to entertain — notably the tiger, the wild boar, and the rhinoceros. These three do not hesitate to affront the elephant in broad daylight, and certainly would not turn tail for their “king” if they met him. Is it then in its appearance that this animal claims to be royal among the quadrupeds? It is true that in repose — notably in the splendid bronzes of Trafalgar Square — there is a surpassing majesty in the lions’ heads. They have the countenances of gods. Their manes sweep down upon their shoulders like the terrible hair of the Olympian Zeus, and there is that in their eyes that speaks of a foreknowledge of things and of days, grand as fallen Saturn and implacable as the Sphinx.
