68 ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



On this occasion, however, our friend had been un- 

 fortunate, returning without venison, although I had 

 heard the loud booming of his " roer" a short time pre- 

 viously. The report made by these unwieldy guns of 

 the Boers, charged with a large handful of coarse gun- 

 powder, is to be heard at an amazing distance through 

 the calm atmosphere of these high table-lands; and 

 during my stay on the flats adjoining Thebus Mount- 

 ain, scarcely an hour elapsed at morning, noon, or eve, 

 but the distant booming of some Dutchman's gun sa- 

 luted the ear. 



Mynheer Pocheter asked me in to take some break 

 fast with him, which I did, Cobus acting as interpret- 

 er, mine host not understanding a word of English, and 

 Lnot having at that time acquired the Dutch language, 

 with which I not long afterward became thoroughly 

 conversant. After breakfast I took leave of Mynheer 

 Pocheter, and having directed the wagon to strike out 

 of the direct road to Colesberg, and hold across the 

 country to the abode of a Boer named Hendric Stry- 

 dom, where the game was represented to me as being 

 extremely plentiful, I again rode forth, accompanied by 

 Cobus, to wage war with the springboks. We prick- 

 ed over the plain, holding an easterly course, and found, 

 as yesterday, the springboks in thousands, with here 

 and there a herd of black wildebeest. Finding that 

 by jaging on the open plain I could not get within four 

 or five hundred yards of them, I left my horses and after- 

 rider, and set off on foot to a low range of rocky hills, 

 where I performed two difficult stalks upon a spring- 

 bok and a wildebeest, both of which I wounded severe- 

 ly, but lost. When stalking in upon the springbok 

 I took off my shoes, and had very great difficulty in 

 finding them again. I experienced great distress from 



