296 ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA.. 



the afternoon, as we were inspanning, we were visited 

 by a rebel Boer of very large proportions. This man 

 told us plainly that the Boers did not consider them- 

 selves as conquered, and that they intended to try it 

 once again. 



We had now reached that point in our line of march 

 where we were to take leave of the Vet River. I rode 

 ahead of the wagons to hunt, and after proceeding 

 about a mile, found myself out of the country of sweet 

 grass, and entering upon bare and boundless open plains, 

 thinly clad with sour pasturage, the favorite haunt and 

 continual residence of innumerable herds of black wilde- 

 beest, blesbok, and springbok. As I rode on, large 

 troops of these excellent, sport-yielding antelopes grati- 

 fied my eyes in every direction. I had been long away 

 from them, far, far in the dense forest regions of the far 

 interior, and now I gazed once more upon them with a 

 lively feeling of pleasure and intense interest which no 

 words can describe. 



When the sun rose next morning I took coffee, and 

 then rode west with two after-riders, in the hope of 

 getting some blesbok shooting. I found the boundless 

 undulating plains thickly covered with game, thousands 

 upon thousands checkering the landscape far as the eye 

 could strain in every direction. The blesboks, which I 

 was most desirous to obtain, were extremely wary, and 

 kept pouring on, on, up the wind, in long-continued 

 streams of thousands, so swift and shy that it was im 

 possible to get within six hundred yards of them, oi 

 even by any stratagem to waylay them, so boundless 

 was the ground, and so cunningly did they avoid cross- 

 ing our track. 



I returned to camp, having bagged one springbok doe 

 and one old bull wildebeest, which was in superb con- 



