gazes around at
the domain over which darkness has again given it dominion. Man may by
day be monarch of the hill-side and plain, but by night the lion may
well be called monarch of all he surveys. From the dimly-seen,
statue-like figure on the rock, a few deep, dissatisfied growls come
rolling over the plain, strike the face of the rock, and echo back again
in confused murmurs, evincing the power of the mighty beast who thus,
with no apparent effort, speaks to all within a range of several miles.
From a far-distant and woody ravine, a fiend-like yell next breaks the
silence of the night, and is followed by a deep-drawn, howling sigh, as
the strand wolf wanders forth to search for the carrion of the day, or
to capture such prey as he is capable of doing. Busy, silent-moving
forms glide past the hunter, and, with a snort of terror or a growl of
anger, move away to the distance, scarce liking to let alone so
apparently defenceless a creature as man seems to be, yet awed by a
certain presence which the brute creation never thoroughly overcome.

Tiny creeping animals again crackle the crisp leaves as they scamper
about in their fastnesses among the bushes, and sniff the scent of the
strange intruder; whilst the noiseless flapping of wings attracts for an
instant the hunter's sight as some ghost-like moving night-bird flies
around him, and examines the strange being that has intruded into its
domain.

Suddenly the sound of a struggle startles the hunter, and a cry of
distress from a stricken creature is audible, whilst frightened animals
rush hither and thither for a time, and then again relapse into their
former indifference. A lion, perhaps, has captured its evening prey
from amongst a grazing herd; or a leopard has struck down the antelope
that it has been cautiously watching and stalking during the past
half-hour. And then again a silence so still, so unbroken, follows the
past turmoil, that the desert wanderer fancies he can hear the thin,
fleecy clouds moving above him, or the long-absent but deeply-loved
voice of one who should be near him. Amidst all the danger, all the
novelty of the scene, however, exhausted nature usually exerts her sway,
and the hyena's laugh or leopard's cry ceases to be heard, whilst the
traveller passes into the unconsciousness of sleep, and dreams probably
of scenes the very opposite of those amidst which he then is, and
awakes, scarcely knowing which is the reality--the dream of old,