It Is Infested With Lions Of Many Kinds, Among Which Are
Many Of That Which Is Called The Lion Royal.
I cannot help giving
the reader on this occasion a relation of a fact which I was an eye-
witness of.
A lion having taken his haunt near the place where I
lived, killed all the oxen and cows, and did a great deal of other
mischief, of which I heard new complaints every day. A servant of
mine having taken a resolution to free the country from this
destroyer, went out one day with two lances, and after he had been
some time in quest of him, found him with his mouth all smeared with
the blood of a cow he had just devoured; the man rushed upon him,
and thrust his lance into his throat with such violence that it came
out between his shoulders; the beast, with one dreadful roar, fell
down into a pit, and lay struggling, till my servant despatched him.
I measured the body of this lion, and found him twelve feet between
the head and the tail.
Chapter II
The animals of Abyssinia; the elephant, unicorn, their horses and
cows; with a particular account of the moroc.
There are so great numbers of elephants in Abyssinia that in one
evening we met three hundred of them in three troops: as they
filled up the whole way, we were in great perplexity a long time
what measures to take; at length, having implored the protection of
that Providence that superintends the whole creation, we went
forwards through the midst of them without any injury. Once we met
four young elephants, and an old one that played with them, lifting
them up with her trunk; they grew enraged on a sudden, and ran upon
us: we had no way of securing ourselves but by flight, which,
however, would have been fruitless, had not our pursuers been
stopped by a deep ditch. The elephants of Aethiopia are of so
stupendous a size, that when I was mounted on a large mule I could
not reach with my hand within two spans of the top of their backs.
In Abyssinia is likewise found the rhinoceros, a mortal enemy to the
elephant. In the province of Agaus has been seen the unicorn, that
beast so much talked of, and so little known: the prodigious
swiftness with which this creature runs from one wood into another
has given me no opportunity of examining it particularly, yet I have
had so near a sight of it as to be able to give some description of
it. The shape is the same with that of a beautiful horse, exact and
nicely proportioned, of a bay colour, with a black tail, which in
some provinces is long, in others very short: some have long manes
hanging to the ground. They are so timorous that they never feed
but surrounded with other beasts that defend them. Deer and other
defenceless animals often herd about the elephant, which, contenting
himself with roots and leaves, preserves those beasts that place
themselves, as it were, under his protection, from the rage and
fierceness of others that would devour them.
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