As to this particular
citation of vaunted evidence, as in their contentions at large, they are
egregiously mistaken and far from the facts and the truth.
Actually, for a lone man, on level ground, far from any shelter, an angry
full-grown young male ostrich is a formidable assailant and a dangerous
antagonist. No living creature that roves the surface of our earth moves
faster than a healthy ostrich. When running it skims the arena, when
attacking it darts. It kicks forward, raising its long and powerful leg
high in the air and bringing it down with a blow so swift that the eye
cannot follow it and so forcible that I have seen one such stroke smash
all together the collar-bone, shoulder-blade, upper arm-bone and half the
ribs on that side of its unfortunate victim, a big, agile, vigorous
Nubian, habituated to ostriches in their haunts. And, if the leg misses
its mark, as it very seldom does, the bird, as it hurls past its enemy,
pecks viciously at his face, its sturdy beak being capable of inflicting a
serious wound wherever it strikes, and often destroying an eye, its usual
target.
To stand alone, far out in the arena, bare-headed, clad only in a
diaphanous silken tunic, armed only with a club no longer or thicker than
his forearm; so habited and armed to await the assault of an infuriated
bird so bulky, so swift, so agile and so powerful; to dodge jauntily, but
infallibly, both the stroke of the leg and the stab of the beak, and
invariably to bring his club down on the darting head and finish the bird
neatly with that one blow; this was equally a feat of self-confidence, of
dexterity, of agility and of strength.
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