io8 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



from his leg, inflicting such a dreadful wound that 

 the Boer died within a few days. Mr. (afterwards 

 Sir John) Barrow, too, in his excellent book, 

 " Travels into the Interior of Africa," published 

 early in this century, writes of a soldier who had 

 mounted a half-domesticated zebra in the Cape 

 Colony. The creature, after making the most 

 desperate attempts to get rid of its rider, at length 

 plunged over a steep bank into a river, and finally 

 threw the soldier heavily as it emerged. While the 

 man lay half stunned upon the ground, the zebra 

 quietly walked up to him and bit one of his ears 

 clean off. The amusing Le Vaillant, in his "Journey 

 to the Country of the Namaquas," about 1784, 

 mentions having ridden a very fierce zebra, which 

 no other person could manage ; but in this particular 

 instance his veracity is, I think, open to doubt. 

 Interesting and instructive, and true to nature, as 

 are very many portions of Le Vaillant's works, 

 especially those pertaining to ornithology, some of 

 the adventures are undoubtedly a little over-coloured 

 by the vanity of the volatile Frenchman. But to 

 return to the zebras of Naroekas Poort. I soon 

 learned that the small troop of eight or ten, then 

 running in the neighbourhood of our rugged pass, 

 confined themselves to the most inaccessible slopes 

 of the mountains, and that, except occasionally on 

 long hunting expeditions after rhebok, klipspringers, 

 and other shy game, they were never seen. I had 

 the greatest curiosity to behold these beautiful 

 creatures in their own wild fastnesses, and for 

 many days, while following mountain antelopes, I 

 looked far and wide for the richly striped wilde 

 paard. At length one day, when out alone with 



