272 A GREAT GAME COUNTRY. 



as a rule game are apt to run to windward, more 

 often than down the wind. In hilly districts also, 

 frightened animals generally try to get on top of the 

 highest eminences, from whence they can see every- 

 thing that approaches from every side; and in such 

 positions, once they have been regularly alarmed, it 

 is seldom possible to get near them again that day. 



The best hunting countries however, generally, are 

 neither absolutely treeless plains nor yet heavy forests, 

 but rather a mixture of the two, where small tracts 

 of dwarf bush and single trees alternate with stretches 

 of open grass lands. Such a country is the beau ideal 

 of a hunter's paradise, when it is well stocked with 

 game; there are immense tracts of such land in the 

 Transvaal and other parts of South Africa, where in 

 the good old times all these qualifications were to be 

 found in the greatest perfection; there are also wide 

 expanses of such land in Northern and Eastern Africa, 

 and in America, as well as in other parts of the world, 

 though we fear the " abundant stock of game" has 

 everywhere become rarer. 



This is the sort of country where a steady shooting 

 horse can be used with such success; the distances 

 are so vast, as we before explained, that a man on 

 foot can do comparatively little ; whereas a well-mounted 

 man can in the course of a day hunt over a lot of 

 country. To do this, a good plan is to go cautiously 

 to the tops of hills and other high ground, and keeping 

 carefully out of sight, get a good look at the sur- 

 rounding landscape with a glass, and if there is any- 

 thing in the nature of a considerable herd of animals 

 pasturing on it, the probability is that the hunter will 



