CHAPTER X

Summary

On our route homeward we halted at a spot where a novel scene once occurred, and which was described by an individual who witnessed it when a boy. Near a very small fountain, which was shown to me, stood a camel thorn-tree, (Acacia Giraffe.) It was a stiff tree, about twelve feet high, with a flat, bushy top. Many years ago, the relater, then a boy, was returning to his village, and having turned aside to the fountain for a drink, lay down on the bank, and fell asleep. Being awoke by the piercing rays of the sun, he saw, through the bush behind which he lay, a giraffe browsing at ease on the tender shoots of the tree, and, to his horror, a lion, creeping like a cat, only a dozen yards from him, preparing to pounce on his prey. The lion eyed the giraffe for a few moments, his body gave a shake, and he bounded into the air, to seize the head of the animal, which instantly turned his stately neck, and the lion, missing his grasp, fell on his back in the centre of the mass of thorns, like spikes, and the giraffe bounded over the plain. The boy instantly followed the example, expecting, as a matter of course, that the enraged lion would soon find his way to the earth.