FIRST YEARS IN SOUTH AFRICA. 23 



these plains, shooting just enough game to supply 

 camp requirements, and now and then going in 

 for a lion-hunt by way of a little desirable excite- 

 ment. On that trip twenty-seven of these animals 

 fell to my double smooth-bore flint-and-steel 

 " Purdey " in seven days' shooting, besides a few 

 others at odd times. So numerous, indeed, were 

 they, that once, near Kaffir River, I counted over 

 forty of all sizes in a single troop. Wart hogs, too, 

 abounded and afforded good bursts for a mile or 

 so, when they generally came to bay and fell to 

 the thrusts of a bayonet fixed on a bamboo shaft 

 a poor substitute for a spear, but the best at 

 hand. 



A large section of what is now the Orange Free 

 State then belonged to a Hottentot tribe under 

 Adam Kok, whose capital was a village called 

 Phillipolis. These people professed Christianity, 

 and upon the whole were not a bad lot. Some of 

 them were rich in flocks and herds, and one I 

 knew possessed about five hundred horses, mostly 

 of a useful, hardy stamp, many of which were 

 admirably broken in as shooting horses, cheap at 

 10 usually asked for them. No visible poverty 

 of depravity was observable, as " Cape Smoke " 



