232 



THE HUNTER'S ARCADIA. 



have possessed or have seen. I purchased it ot trie 

 makers the day before sailing, grumbled much at 

 the price, and found out afterwards that I had not 

 been overcharged for it ; I wish I could say the same 

 of another part of my outfit ; but, to my cost, and 

 I may say sorrow, I cannot. 



From behind a screen of rocks I had a long, 

 searching gaze up to windward ; nothing animated re- 

 warded my effort, should I except a few baboons, 

 who seemed, thus early in the day, not yet to have 

 recovered from the chilliness of the previous night. 

 They were a long way off, so had not discovered 

 me. Poor beasts ! Perhaps they supposed that they 

 were free from danger, as the sun had risen, and 

 their greatest foes of all the leopards had by this 

 hour returned to their cavernous homes in the ad- 

 joining krantzes and caves. 



Stealing away quietly in fact, making my exit 

 from my lurking-place as silently and as invisibly 

 as I possibly could, for a sportsman should ever be 

 a gentleman, and to awaken, frighten, and, perhaps, 

 terrify baboons is no more a gentlemanly per- 

 formance than to scare old women, for there are 

 invariably ladies and kinders in their assemblies 



