THE HIDE HUNTER 2t)7 



and Orange Free State plains still swarmed with 

 game, the Dutch Afrikanders did pretty well at the 

 business, and the wagons, loaded up with skins of 

 the blesbok, wildebeest, zebra, hartebeest, and spring- 

 bok, rolled merrily down to Port Elizabeth and 

 Natal. Every farmer of those regions then shot for 

 skins. But, having cleared his own country of the 

 magnificent fauna with which it teemed, the average 

 Boer has with a sigh relinquished the old hunting 

 life, and only the poorer burghers trek beyond the 

 Limpopo and follow the game. Hans Botha himself 

 is a true nomad, thoroughly bitten with the life of 

 the hunting veldt. His father was, in the good days, 

 an elephant hunter before him, and he himself was 

 born in the wilderness, and will probably end his days 

 there. He may go transport-riding for six months 

 and make a little money with his wagons and oxen ; 

 but a few days in the crowded streets of Johannesburg 

 are quite enough to send him once more to the veldt, 

 with its freedom, and its solitude, where laws and 

 commandoes run not, and the voice of the tax-gatherer 

 is not heard. 



Day is just breaking ! a few pink streaks fleck the 

 pallid eastern sky ; the francolins are calling to one 

 another amid the grass, just as their cousins, the 

 partridges, call at home, but with sharper and shriller 

 voices. Hans Botha stands over the fire drinking 

 his morning coffee and munching a "cookie" of Boer 



