246 BOTANICAL EXCURSIONS 
Trompeter’s Drift, about thirty miles from Graham's Town; 
but the active war waged against them for the sake of their 
ivory, by the Albany settlers, the more frequent passage of 
men and cattle through those wild tracts, the patrolling and 
fighting in the bush during the late Caffer war, have put these 
aboriginal inhabitants to the rout. At the present day, it is 
said, not an elephant is to be found in any part of the Fish 
River Bush. The rhinoceros and buffalo still exist there; 
but the former, the most dangerous of all the wild beasts of 
this country, is become extremely rare, The hippopotamus, 
er sea cow as the Dutch call it, though much reduced in 
numbers, is still to be found near the mouth of the river. 
All the larger kinds of antelope have become far scarcer 
than they were formerly within the bounds of the colony, and 
some are quite extinct. The high, open table plains called 
the Bontebok Flats, lying to the north-east of the Winter- 
berg, are still famous for the abundance of large game. 
Many officers who had visited them for the sake of hunting, 
assured me that the immense multitudes of wild quadrupeds, 
especially of the Quagga, the Gnoo or Wildebeest, the Bles- 
bok, and the Springbok, which were there to be seen, were 
really astonishing. Lions are frequently to be met with on 
those Flats, though much reduced in number by the exertions 
of the sportsmen. It is said that the lion will seldom attack 
a man, at least a white man, unless provoked; when roused 
he generally walks away at a slow pace and with an air of 
great deliberation and tranquillity, seeming to say, “I will 
let you alone if you let me alone;” but if pursued or fired at, 
he attacks in his turn with great fury. I had always sup- 
posed that this was a solitary animal, but the officers who 
had hunted on the Bontebok Flats, all concurred in asserting 
that it was usual to meet with several lions together, some- 
times as many as seven or eight. 
I must not enlarge on the wild sports of South Africa, 
which I did not myself witness, and of which a copious an 
amusing account has been given by Captain Harris. When 
I was at Fort Beaufort, I saw some admirable drawing — 
