118 NATURE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



additional start, and we finally lost liim. It was 

 now getting late — there is little or no twilight in this 

 country — and hounds were taken home. 



I was not out again until October 30. During 

 the interval there had been heavy rains; the going 

 was better, scent had greatly improved, and sport 

 had been good. On the afternoon of this day we 

 found a silver jackal in the veldt just north of the 

 town. There was evidently any amount of scent, 

 and hounds ran with the greatest dash and resolu- 

 tion. The jackal pointed north-west, and went as 

 straight as an arrow. For twenty-five minutes 

 jackal, hounds, and horsemen galloped their hardest. 

 There was no fear of over-riding hounds. In ten 

 minutes the field was spread-eagled over the veldt. 

 Even the best-mounted could barely live near the pack, 

 which ran compactly and well together. Towards 

 the close we had to pick our way as best we might 

 over a rather appalling out-crop of rocks and boulders. 

 This surmounted, we found ourselves again upon a 

 big flat, with nothing between us and the far hori- 

 zon but Massouw's Kop, a hill many miles distant. 

 Hounds were running faster and more fiercely, and 

 were rapidly gaining on the jackal, which, just at 

 the end of this brilliant gallop, was viewed forty or 

 fifty yards only from the leaders. Some meerkat 

 and jackal earths at this moment came providentially 

 in his line — probably he had made them his point — 



