ACROSS CAMDEBOO TO NAROEKAS POORT. 61 



or so during the day, seeing no sign of human life or 

 habitation till late in the afternoon, when we reached 

 a store and farmhouse. 



At this outspan we met a gentleman, with whom 

 we were afterwards better acquainted, Mr. David 

 Hume, son of one of the Algoa Bay settlers of 1820. 

 His father, also a David Hume, was the pioneer of 

 British enterprise in the territory now called Trans- 

 vaal then a terra incognita, held by the fierce 

 Moselikatse and his Amabaka-Zulu hordes. The 

 first expedition of this gentleman to that country, 

 undertaken in 1833, may be found marked upon the 

 map at the end of Cornwallis Harris's delightful 

 book, " Wild Sports of Southern Africa." 



The elder Hume was also one of the earliest, if 

 not the first British trader and hunter among the 

 more northerly of the Bechuana tribes, as may be 

 noticed by his route marked upon Harris's map. 

 From Mr. David Hume, himself a great interior 

 hunter, and a mine of information concerning the far 

 interior, we obtained much interesting intelligence. 

 He had made several trips to the Zambesi. Upon 

 the last one, which he undertook in company with 

 two English officers, he had barely escaped with 

 life from the malignant Zambesi fever, to which his 

 two companions had unhappily both fallen victims. 



The life of an elephant and big game hunter in 

 those regions is, indeed, one of incessant hardship 

 and danger. And yet, such is its absorbing fascina- 

 tion, that once bitten with the Cacoethes venandi, these 

 hunters will return season after season to renew 

 the perils and delights of the dim and dangerous 

 wilderness. 



At this place we parted with the gentleman 



