My friend Captain Potham Hall, the renowned hunter of big game, says there is nothing more exhilarating than a brush with a herd — a pack — a team — a flock — a swarm (it has taken me a full quarter of an hour to recall the right word, but I have it at last) — a pride of lions. Why a number of lions are called a "pride," a number of whales a "school," and a number of foxes a "skulk" are mysteries of philology into which I will not enter.
Well, the captain says that if a spirited lion crosses your path in the desert it becomes lively, for the lion has generally been looking for the man just as much as the man has sought the king of the forest. And yet when they meet they always quarrel and fight it out. A little contemplation of this unfortunate and long-standing feud between two estimable families has led me to figure out a few calculations as to the probability of the man and the lion crossing one another's path in the jungle. In all these cases one has to start on certain more or less arbitrary assumptions. That is why in the above illustration I have thought it necessary to represent the paths in the desert with such rigid regularity. Though the captain assures me that the tracks of the lions usually run much in this way, I have doubts.
The puzzle is simply to find out, in how many different ways the man and the lion may be placed in two different spots that are not on the same path. By "paths" it must be understood that I only refer to the ruled lines. Thus, with the exception of the four corner spots, each combatant is always on two paths and no more. It will be seen that there is a lot of scope for evading one another in the desert, which is just what one has always understood.
Solutions: 1
Sections: 1
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