y covered
with boards, and upon these was raised a sort of low hut or sentry-box,
just large enough to contain a man, who, when the proper moment arrived,
peeped forth from his concealment and cautiously raised the front of the
trap, which was a kind of drop-door working in a groove. [PLATE CXIX.,
Fig. 2.] The trap being thus opened, the lion stole out, looking
somewhat ashamed of his confinement, but doubtless anxious to vent his
spleen on the first convenient object. The king, prepared for his
attack, saluted him, as he left his cage, with an arrow, and, as he
advanced, with others, which sometimes stretched him dead upon the
plain, sometimes merely disabled him, while now and then they only
goaded him to fury. In this case he would spring at the royal chariot,
clutch some part of it, and in his agony grind it between his teeth, or
endeavor to reach the inmates of the car from behind. If the king had
descended from the car to the plain, the infuriated beast might make his
spring at the royal person, in which case it must have required a stout
heart to stand unmoved, and aim a fresh arrow at a vital part while the
creature was in mid-air, especially if (as we sometimes see represented)
a second lion was following close upon the first, and would have to be
received within a few seconds. It would seem that the lions on some
occasions were not to be goaded into making an attack, but simply
endeavored to escape by flight. To prevent this, troops were drawn up in
a double line of spearmen and archers round the space within which the
lions were let loose, the large shields of the front or spearmen line
forming a sort of wall, and the spears a _chevaux de frise_, through
which it was almost impossible for the beasts to break. In front of the
soldiers, attendants held hounds in leashes, which either by their
baying and struggling frightened the animals back, or perhaps assisted
to despatch them. [PLATE CXIX., Fig. 3.] The king meanwhile plied his
bow, and covered the plain with carcasses, often striking a single beast
with five or six shafts.

The number of lions destroyed at these royal _battues_ is very
surprising. In one representation no fewer than eighteen are seen upon
the field, of which eleven are dead and five seriously wounded. The
introduction of trapped beasts would seem to imply that the game, which
under the earlier monarchs had been exceedingly abundant,--failed
comparatively under the later ones, who therefore