CHAPTER XVI 



THE HIDE HUNTER 



A Transvaal Boer's camp — Skin-hunting — The okl days — A 

 true nomad — Daybreak — Hans Botha — Away for the veldt 

 — Scenery — Spoor of the Zwart-wit-pens — The game found 

 — A wonderful picture — Death of a Bull — The chase — Two 

 more Sable Antelopes shot — A fine morning s work — How 

 the game vanishes. 



It is half-an-hour before dawn at the camp of 

 Hans Botha, a Transvaal Boer, who is just now pre- 

 paring for a morning's hunting. Not so many years 

 ago Hans hunted elephants for their teeth, and did 

 pretty well by the sale of his ivory down country. 

 But that is a thing of the past ; elephants south of 

 the Zambesi are now so scarce that in a whole 

 season's hunting you may not even see the spoor of 

 one. And so Hans is reduced, like others of his 

 kind, to pursue the game that remains to the veldt 

 of South-Eastern Africa for the price he can get for 

 the skins. It is a miserable profession, this skin- 

 hunting, and only the poorest of the Transvaal Boers 



still stick to it. Thirty years ago, when the Transvaal 

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