Patrick O'Brian - The Hundred Days

‘He says that if we do not mind making a rather muddy detour he will show you a sight that you will appreciate: he very rightly looks upon you as a creature of a finer essence.’

‘Long may he live. Let us by all means see his sight.’

Its probable nature became evident as they approached the part of the lake where it received the river, a little delta of mud and sand that retained footmarks with admirable clarity on either side: and footmarks there were in extraordinary numbers, this being so convenient a fresh-water drinking place - jackals, deer of various sizes, hyenas, leopards, a single bear, but above all those of lions, large and even very large tracks from different directions all converging towards the deep pool where the stream ran fast between bare rocky sides to plunge into the Shatt. Here the tracks were almost wholly lions’, in great profusion, mingling and crossing.

‘Ibrahim says that on some evenings the lions from our side of the river come down here to drink and to meet the lions from the other side, those that live in the plain country southwards. And when they are all assembled, each side roars at the other: all of one side, then all of the other. He has watched them from that tree. He says it is extraordinarily moving.’

‘I can well believe it,’ said Stephen. ‘About how many lions a side?’

‘Sometimes as many as eight.’

‘Lionesses too?’

‘No, no, no. Dear me, no,’ said Jacob. Ibrahim shook his head with great disapproval, but then spoke for some minutes. ‘He says that sometimes a strange lioness, a lioness from away, comes roving into our part: the lionesses from here will join and attack her, roaring very like the true lions. And he says we should hurry: we are late already, which the Dey cannot bear.’

They regained the path, and as they rode Stephen observed, ‘So that is what the Vizier meant by le club des lions. I presume lions do not climb trees, but I should be obliged if you would confirm it with this amiable youth.’

‘He confirms it. Leopard, yes: lions, no.’

‘Then I believe I must see this club, if time can possibly be found.’

There seemed to be time and to spare in the Dey’s hunting camp, a number of small tents tucked into an unexpected and almost invisible deli some way from the river-bank and the natural road along the stream, the highway for all the creatures of the region. There were different human paths leading from it to the camp, one for each day of the week, so that the place should not become too notorious; and today being Tuesday, Ibrahim led them up through a stand of oaks, where in spite of the presence of men no great way off, wild boars had been ploughing the ground for acorns and tubers over a stretch of between fifteen and twenty acres so that it looked like a well pioughed and harrowed field.

At the guarded descent into the dell Ibrahim showed his pass again and they were led to a tent with a small heap of rugs in it, the topmost being of an enchanting diapered pattern whose colours glowed like jewels when the sun touched them.

Amos Jacob and Stephen passed their time discussing chronic diseases they had personally encountered and the measures they had taken to alleviate them at least in some degree, with estimates of their success, usually very slight or even non-existent, but on one or two occasions most gratifying and spectacular. They were deep in two extraordinary, unaccountable and lasting cases of remission in phthisis and tetraplegia when the chief huntsman came to say that Omar Pasha would now receive them.

They found the Dey in a fairly high state of grease and good humour. Stephen bowed and said, ‘May I present His Britannic Majesty’s government’s greetings and good wishes to His Highness Omar Pasha?’

Jacob translated, but in Stephen’s opinion not quite literally, since the name of God occurred several times.

Omar rose, bowed - they all bowed - and said he was most gratified by his English cousin’s friendly message, the first he had received from a European ruler: he desired them to sit down and called for coffee and a hookah. ‘I have just succeeded in putting these together,’ he said, observing that Stephen’s eye was keenly turned upon a beautiful pair of guns, of double-barrelled, rifled guns. ‘I took the plates off to look at the sear, but for a great while I was puzzled to get them and the sear-spring back again. However, with God’s help it is done now, ha ha! Blessed be the Name of God.’ Jacob made the ritual response and Stephen a murmur: the Pasha looked so pleased at his success that Stephen asked whether he might look at the nearer gun.

‘By all means,’ said the Dey, and put it into his hands. The gun was much lighter than Stephen had expected, and it came up to his shoulder almost like a fowling-piece, a pretty solid fowling-piece for duck or geese. ‘You are accustomed to guns, I find?’ said the Dey, smiling.

‘Indeed I am, sir,’ replied Stephen. ‘I have shot many and many a creature with them, partly for sport and partly for study.’

The coffee and the pipe came in; and after a longish pause in which they smoked and drank, Stephen said, ‘I do not believe I have ever had better nor more welcome coffee: but now, sir, with your permission I will deliver the message that His Majesty’s Ministry has entrusted to me. It has come to their knowledge that several numerous Shiite brotherhoods and confederacies along the Adriatic and lonian coast and inland to Serbia who support Bonaparte .

‘Bonaparte, that son of a dog,’ said the Dey, his face clouding with anger and taking on a very wicked look.

‘... have combined to intervene in his favour by doing all they can...’ Stephen carried on, although he knew that he had lost the Dey’s attention and that he was irritating him.

‘Your master must have some very weak advisers,’ said the Dey when Stephen came to an end, ‘very weak, if they can believe that after his Royal Navy has so banged and battered Bonaparte’s friends in the Adriatic. I love the Royal Navy: I knew Sir Smith at Acre... but I leave all these things to my Vizier: he understands politics. For my part I understand soldiers: soldiers and their fate. And I know that this Bonaparte must fall. Whether there is any truth in this alleged plot and whether it succeeds or fails is of no consequence: this Bonaparte must fall. It is written. He has gone beyond what is allowed and he must therefore necessarily fall: it is written.’ He jerked his head and muttered, looking intensely disagreeable; but presently his eye fell on the guns once more, and with a far more amiable expression he said, ‘So you are interested in animals, sir, in the hunting and study of animals?’

‘Very much so indeed, sir.’

‘Then should you like to hunt a lion with me? I mean to lie in wait for one tomorrow evening.’

‘I should like it of all things, sir; but I have not so much as a fowling-piece with me.’

‘As for that, you may choose either of these and grow used to it, shooting all-through the afternoon - there is no want of powder and shot in this camp, I do assure you - and then in the evening, with your gun still warm and supple, we will walk along the river-bank in blood-soaked shoes.’

‘Blood-soaked shoes, Pasha?’

‘Why, yes: did you not know that blood - swine’s blood, deer’s blood - does away with human scent? Along the bank until we are under Ibn Haukal’s crag: a few feet up this crag there is a hollow called Ibn Haukal’s cave, since he meditated there for a while during his travels: it is large enough for two men and it is somewhat hidden by tall grass and plants hanging from above. Some way farther up the stream, in the same kind of rock, there is a much larger and deeper cave where this lion Mahmud and his mate have their young. Although the cubs are quite large by now he still feeds them and of course his lioness; and it is his custom to walk down to the stream to some scattered bushes near a common watering-place and there to wait for a boar or a deer or whatever offers - last year he took one of my men who was trapping porcupines. I mean to wait for him on his way home, since he carries his prey hanging to the left. This allows one to shoot him behind the right ear and perhaps to kill him with the first shot. We shall, God willing, have the kindest moon for both his journeys.’