David Livingstone once wrote, "The first person who ascribed noble qualities to the lion seems to have been followed by the rest of mankind as sheep follow that one which has the bell, or as a string of geese does the leader." The puffed-up majestic lions, he said, looked like "old women in nightcaps."

But perhaps the explorer's deflations masked a deeper fear, for at the beginning of his career he was badly mauled by one of the beasts. He never tired of telling the story, and each time he embroidered it and made it more heroic, until one could almost see the hand of God protecting Daniel in the lions' den.

The village of Mabotsa, near Robert Moffat's Kuruman station, was troubled by lions when Livingstone arrived there in 1844. They killed so many cattle, the lions were thought to be bewitched. Livingstone encouraged the villagers to join him in hunting the lion. As they came upon a pride of lions resting on a rock, Livingstone gave the largest male both barrels of his ...

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