434 HUNTING ADVENTURES. 



graceful head nodded like some lofty pine, all doubt was in another 

 moment at an end it was the stately, the long-sought giraife, and, 

 putting spurs to my horae, and directing the Hottentots to follow, I 

 presently found myself half choked with excitement, rattling at the 

 heels of an animal which, to me, had been a stranger even in its cap- 

 tive state, and which, thus to meet free on its native plains, has 

 fallen to the lot of but few of the votaries of the chase ; sailing be- 

 fore me with incredible velocity, his long swan-like neck, keeping 

 Sime to the eccentric motion of his stilt-like legs his ample black 

 tail curled above his buck, and whisking in ludicrous concert with 

 the rocking of his disproportioned frame he glided gallantly along 

 " like some tall ship upon the ocean's bosom," and seemed to leave 

 whole leagues behind him at each stride. 



The ground was of the most treacherous description ; a rotten, 

 black soil, overgrown with long, coarse grass, which concealed from 

 view innumerable gaping fissures, that momentarily threatened to 

 bring down my horse. For the first five minutes, I rather lost than 

 gained ground, and, despairing over such a country of ever diminish- 

 ing the distance, or improving my acquaintance with this ogre in 

 seven league boots, I dismounted, and the mottled carcass present- 

 ing a fair and inviting mark, I had the satisfaction of hearing two 

 balls tell roundly upon his plank-like stern. But as well might I 

 have fired at a wall ; he neither swerved from his course or slackened 

 his pace, and pushed on so far ahead during the time that I was re- 

 loading, that, after remounting, I had some difficulty in even keep- 

 ing sight of him among the trees. Closing again, however, I re- 

 peated the dose on the other quarter, and spurred my horse along, 

 ever and anon sinking to the fetlock the giraffe now flagging at 

 each stride until, as I was coming up hand-over-hand, and success 

 eeemed certain, the cup was suddenly dashed from my lips, and down 

 I came headlong my horse having fallen into a pit, and lodged me 

 close to an ostrich's nest, near which two of the old birds were 

 sitting. Happily, there were no bones broken, but the violence 

 of the shock had caused the lashings of my previously-broken ride 

 to give waj^ and had do ibled tbe stocks in half, the barrels only hang- 

 ing to the wood by the trigger guard. Nothing dismayed, however, 



