FOX-HUNTING IN BECHUANALAND 117 



ing to Takwaning (Maliura's Stadt) and Kumman. 

 In ten or fifteen minutes we were in some likely- 

 looking veldt, thinly covered with vaal bash. Here 

 hounds were thrown off. In five minutes or less 

 there is a whimper, then succeed several louder and 

 fiercer notes, and then, with a crash of voices, hounds 

 are settled on the line of a steinbok, which dodges 

 through the coverts in front of us. We run fast for 

 ten minutes, then check ; scent is evidently poor, and 

 this buck has made good his escape. Ten minutes 

 later a duyker is roused and driven out. He points 

 for the north-west, and away we gallop, over some 

 tremendously rough veldt, as hard as horses can 

 manage. Then comes a check after fifteen minutes' 

 scurry. We are quickly on the line again, hounds 

 bearing left-handed in a wide curve. We hunt 

 steadily for ten minutes till another check occurs, 

 just on the edge of a broad dip or depression in the 

 veldt. Two leading hounds perseveringly hit off the 

 line again, others follow ; there is a blast of the horn 

 for stragglers, and away we go, hard at it again over 

 a good piece of galloping ground. The buck is 

 evidently ringing round to his old ground again ; we 

 are soon pointing for Vryburg, and finally, after three- 

 quarters of an hour's steady hunting, we are back 

 again close to where we found. Scent was by no 

 means good; the country was far too dry. There 

 had been a third check ; the duyker thereby gained 



