The Mahomedans, among his motley
following, ate with relish the product of his rifle.
'They trusted me,' he dwelt on that, 'to say "In the name of the Lord,"
when a beast was killed, so observing the Mahomedan rite. They would not
have eaten of its flesh, had they not known that their belief was
expressed, "You are not to destroy one of the Creator's creatures, except
by His permission." Whenever Mahomedans were with me, I undertook to
observe the rule, nor did I ever fail.'
One. sees, in that fact of chance mention, another evidence of how Sir
George came to be such a force among the raw men of the earth. He had the
genius for taking pains to understand them, and thus, even unwittingly,
made them his disciples. Just, he touched the spot.
In his reign at the Cape, the lion was still rampant far south of the
Zambesi. Twice, while hunting, he got on the trail of the monarch, but he
never slew him. A leopard would skulk into the demesne of Table Mountain
itself, and be ingloriously trapped. The lion made other sport, lying on
a high place while it was day, and going forth to roam at dark. Sir
George went to the Bible for the character sketch of the lion, in
particular to the Psalms:
Thou makest darkness, and it is night;
Wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.
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