CHAPTER XX. 



UNATTRACTIVE MORTALITY. 

 The Vlakke-varke's Home Game to the Last Ugly Imps. 



Two miserable starved dogs accompanied the rein- 

 forcement, and we, of course, went to see the fun 

 which was confidently expected, as the dusky hunters 

 were armed solely with assegais. 



The wild boar has been speared on foot in India, 

 I am aware, but such instances are so few and wide 

 apart, that the rencontre is marked down in the sports- 

 man's memory as an event always to be remembered. 

 But in South Africa, to kill either the bosch-varke 

 or vlakke-varke with the assegai is almost a daily 

 occurrence. An Indian shikari will smile with derision 

 when I compare, in a sporting sense, the representa- 

 tives of the pig race in both continents. " Every crow 

 thinks its own young one the whitest." I know both 

 animals well, and I unhesitatingly say that African 



