404 AFRICAN RESEARCHES. 



upon whose reality I now gazed for the first time. It passed rapidly among 

 the trees, above the topmost "branches of many of which its graceful head 

 nodded like some lofty pine — it was the stately, the long-sought giraffe. — 

 Putting spurs to my horse, and directing the Hottentots to follow, I pre- 

 sently found myself, half choked with excitement, rattling at the heels of 

 the tallest of all the mammiferes, whom thus to meet, free on his native 

 plains, has fallen to the lot of few of the votaries of the chase. Sailing he- 

 fore me with incredible velocity, his long swan-like neck keeping time to 

 the eccentric motion of his stilt-like legs — his ample black tail curled above 

 his back, and whisking in ludicrous concert with the rocking of his dispro- 

 portioned frame, he glided gallantly along, " like some tall ship upon the 

 ocean's bosom," and seemed to leave whole leagues behind him at each 

 stride. The ground was of the most treacherous description ; a rotten black 

 soil, overgrown with long coarse grass, which concealed from view innumer- 

 able cracks and fissures, that momentarily threatened to throw down my 

 horse. For the first five minutes I rather lost than gained ground, and de- 

 spairing, in such a country, of ever diminishing the distance, or improving 

 my acquaintance with this ogre in seven-league boots, I dismounted, and 

 had the satisfaction of hearing two balls tell roundly on his plank-like stern. 

 But I might as well have fired at a wall ; he neither swerved from his course 

 nor slackened his pace, and had pushed on so far a-head during the time I 

 was re-loading, that, after re-mounting, I had some difficulty in even keep- 

 ing sight of him amongst the trees. Closing again, however, I repeated 

 the dose on the other quarter, and spurred along my horse, ever and anon 

 sinking to his fetlock ; the giraffe now flagging at each stride, until, as I 

 was coming up hand over hand, and success seemed certain, down I came 

 headlong, — my horse having fallen into a pit, and lodged me close to an 

 ostriches' nest, in which the old birds were sitting." 



Here we have the first novelty in the way of Natural His- 

 tory, — the male and female ostrich employed at the same time 

 in the act of incubation. Surely our hero might have had the 

 adroitness to have tumbled into instead of outside the ostrich- 

 es' nest, and across one of the old birds, which, starting off 

 and bolting a-head, would in a jiffey have brought him along- 

 side of the giraffe. Luckily, both horse and rider found their 

 legs again, without having sustained any serious damage ; 

 but the violence of the shock bent the rifle double, and so 

 nearly detached it from the stock, that it hung only by the 

 trigger- guard, a mishap, under such circumstances, sufficient 

 to paralise the energies of any traveller who had not a copy of 

 Baron Munchausen in his pocket. Lions and black rhino- 

 ceroses were around, as plentiful as partridges in a Norfolk 

 turnip-field in the month of September, and the Captain was 

 alone, and his only weapon the said unfortunate rifle. 



To an ordinary mind, or one unpossessed of a shooting ma- 

 nia, a retreat with all possible dispatch to the camp, would 

 have appeared the most prudent course in such an emergen- 

 cy, but not so thought our author ; the object of pursuit was 

 still in sight, and, " nothing dismayed by this heavy calami- 

 ty," he remounted his jaded beast. But how was the giraffe 



