98 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



service of the Dutch East India Company, at the 

 Cape, crossed the Orange River and, just beyond 

 the northern shore, in the country now known as 

 Great Namaqualand, shot one of these animals, the 

 skin of which was preserved and brought to Europe. 

 Since this discovery the animal has become familiar 

 to English and Dutch hunters. In the Soudan 

 regions the Arabs, as long as they have possessed 

 horses, have no doubt hunted these tall quadrupeds 

 from the saddle, and the wild Hamran sword 

 hunters, so well described by Sir Samuel Baker in 

 his Nile Tributaries of 'Abyssinia, were able to run into 

 and hamstring them with sharp and heavy swords, 

 just as they did the elephant and the rhinoceros. 



Giraffe hunting on horseback has, among South 

 African sportsmen, always been regarded as one 

 of the most fascinating of all pursuits. It has, 

 as I can testify, a wonderful charm of its own, 

 and the first sight of a troop of these strange, 

 gigantic, and beautifully-coloured beasts browsing in 

 their native forests, and the subsequent headlong 

 gallop of several miles over rough and diversified 

 country, often through thorn -bush and jungle of 

 the most severe description, combine to render the 

 running down and shooting of one of these animals 

 one of the most thrilling and exciting experiences in 

 the world. There is nothing else like it. Neither 

 fox-hunting nor the chase of eland, gemsbok, 

 brindled gnu, or other large antelopes, can be at all 

 compared with it. Giraffe hunting is unique, and 

 stands easily first in all forms of the chase where 



