XI A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE 215 



run in the other direction. In the nature of things 

 one cannot have an adventure with a giraffe, but 

 I have had two somewhat curious experiences 

 with these animals. 



During 1876, when my friend George Dorehill 

 and I were hunting in Western Matabeleland, some 

 Bushmen one day came to our camp and asked us 

 to shoot them a giraffe for the sake of the meat ; 

 so, on the following morning, we went out with 

 them, and before long crossing the fresh tracks 

 of a big old bull, followed them, and presently came 

 up with the animal itself. After a short gallop, I 

 wounded it, and it then very soon came to a halt 

 and stood quite still. Wishing to drive it to our 

 camp, I rode slowly towards it, waving my hat 

 and shouting, but it never moved. I was sitting 

 on my horse quite close to where the giant beast 

 stood towering above me, when I heard the crack of 

 my friend's rifle close behind me. At the same 

 instant, the whole seventeen feet of giraffe lurched 

 over and came tumbling towards me, perfectly 

 rigid and without a bend in legs or neck. I 

 don't think I had hold of my horse's reins when 

 my friend fired and shot the giraffe through the 

 head from behind, and the sudden fall of the huge 

 beast was so unexpected that my horse never 

 moved till the great head crashed to the ground 

 close to its forefeet. I am sure that I am not 

 exaggerating when I say that the short thick 

 horns of this dead giraffe only missed my horse's 

 neck by less than six inches. Had the giraffe 

 only been a little taller, or had my horse and I 

 been a little nearer to it, there would have been 

 more than one dead animal on the ground soon 

 after my friend's very accurate shot. 



On another occasion, during the same year, 

 Dorehill wounded a giraffe — a good-sized but not 

 full-grown bull — which, after running a little distance, 



