ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 87 



sat down to a comfortable dinner, with game of some sort 

 as the principal dish. 



On the first march after leaving our lion camp at Potha 

 I shot a wart-hog. It was a good-sized sow, which, in com- 

 pany with several of her half-grown offspring, was grazing 

 near our line of march; there were some thorn-trees which 

 gave a little cover, and I killed her at a hundred and eighty 

 yards, using the Springfield, the lightest and handiest of all 

 my rifles. Her flesh was good to eat, and the skin, as with 

 all our specimens, was saved for the National Museum. 

 I did not again have to shoot a sow, although I killed half- 

 grown pigs for the table, and boars for specimens. This 

 sow and her porkers were not rooting, but were grazing 

 as if they had been antelope; her stomach contained noth- 

 ing but chopped green grass. Wart-hogs are common 

 throughout the country over which we hunted. They are 

 hideous beasts, with strange protuberances on their cheeks; 

 and when alarmed they trot or gallop away, holding the 

 tail perfectly erect with the tassel bent forward. Usually 

 they are seen in family parties, but a big boar will often be 

 alone. They often root up the ground, but the stomachs of 

 those we shot were commonly filled with nothing but grass. 

 If the weather is cloudy or wet they may be out all day 

 long, but in hot, dry weather we generally found them 

 abroad only in the morning and evening. A pig is always 

 a comical animal; even more so than is the case with a 

 bear, which also impresses one with a sense of grotesque 

 humor and this notwithstanding the fact that both boar 

 and bear may be very formidable creatures. A wart-hog 

 standing alertly at gaze, head and tail up, legs straddled 

 out, and ears cocked forward, is rather a figure of fun; 





