To this interesting animal, the following lines by Dryden, might with propriety have been applied:
"The Panther, sure the noblest next the Hind And fairest creature of the spotted kind; Oh, could her inborn stains be washed away, She were too good to be a beast of prey! How can I praise or blame, and not offend, Or how divide the frailty from the friend? Her faults and virtues lie so mixed that she, Nor wholly stands condemned, nor wholly free."
Mr. Gordon Cumming describes two encounters with leopards, one of which was nearly attended with fatal consequences: "On the 17th," says he, "I was attacked with acute rheumatic fever, which kept me to my bed, and gave me excruciating pain. Whilst I lay in this helpless state, Mr. Orpen and Present, who had gone up the river to shoot sea cows, fell in with an immense male leopard, which the latter wounded very baldly. They then sent natives to camp, to ask me for dogs, of which I sent them a pair. In about an hour the natives came running to camp, and said that Orpen was killed by the leopard. On further inquiry, however, I found that he was not really killed, but frightfully torn and bitten about the arms and head. They had rashly taken up the spoor on foot, the dogs following behind them, instead of going in advance. The consequence of this was, that they came right upon the leopard before they were aware of him, when Orpen fired and missed him. The leopard then sprang on his shoulders, and dashing him to the ground lay upon him, howling and lacerating his hands, arms, and head most fearfully. Presently the leopard permitted Orpen to rise and come away. Where were the gallant Present and all the natives, that not a man of them moved to assist the unfortunate Orpen? According to an established custom among all colonial servants, the instant the leopard sprang, Present discharged his piece in the air, and then dashing it to the ground he rushed down the bank and jumped into the river, along which he swam some hundred yards before he would venture on _terra firma_. The natives, though numerous and armed, had likewise fled in another direction."
The tenacity of life of these animals was well shown in the other encounter: "Having partaken of some refreshment," says Mr. Cumming, "I saddled two steeds, and rode down the banks of Ngotwani, with the Bushman, to seek for any game I might find. After riding about a mile along the river's bank, I came suddenly upon an old male leopard lying under the shade of a thorn grove, and panting from the great heat. Although I was within sixty yards of him, he had not heard the horse's tread. I thought he was a lioness and dismounting, took a rest in my saddle on the old gray, and sent a bullet into him. He sprang to his feet, and ran half way down the river's bank, and stood to look about him, when I sent a second bullet into his person, and he disappeared over the bank. The ground being very dangerous, I did not disturb him by following then, but I at once sent Ruyter back to camp for the dogs. Presently he returned with Wolf and Boxer, very much done up with the sun. I rode forward, and on looking over the bank, the leopard started up and sneaked off alongside of the tall reeds, and was instantly out of sight. I fired a random shot from the saddle, to encourage the dogs, and shouted to them; they, however, stood looking stupidly round, and would not take up his scent at all. I led them over his spoor again and again, but to no purpose; the dogs seemed quite stupid, and yet they were Wolf and Boxer, my two best. At length I gave it up as a lost affair, and was riding down the river's bank, when I heard Wolf give tongue behind me, and galloping back I found him at bay, with the leopard immediately beneath where I had first fired at him; he was very severely wounded, and had slipped down into the river's bed, and doubled back, whereby he had thrown out both the dogs and myself. As I approached, he flew out upon Wolf and knocked him over, and then running up the bed of the river he took shelter in a thick bush. Wolf, however, followed him, and at this moment my other dogs came up, having heard the shot, and bayed him fiercely. He sprang out upon them, and then crossed the river's bed, taking shelter beneath some large tangled roots on the opposite bank. As he crossed the river, I put a third bullet into him, firing from the saddle, and as soon as he came to bay I gave him a fourth, which finished him. This leopard was a very fine old male. In the conflict, the unfortunate Alert was wounded as usual, getting his face torn open. He was still going on three legs, with all his breast laid bare by the first water-buck."