264 Iktngs of tbe IRofc, IRtfle, an& <&un 



India he found the climate utterly unsuited to him. For 

 eighteen months he fought against it ; but his health 

 became so seriously affected that in 1 840 he resigned his 

 commission and returned to Scotland. For a while he 

 devoted himself to deer-stalking, but he soon found that 

 sport too tame for him. He felt the instincts of " the 

 wild hunter " stirring in him, and longed for more 

 exciting adventures than fall to the share of " the 

 mere sportsman." An ensigncy in the " Royal Veteran 

 Newfoundland Company" promised some prospect of 

 the sport he craved for in the Western Hemisphere. 

 But his hopes in this direction were not fulfilled. Dis- 

 appointed and disgusted, he exchanged in 1843 into 

 the Cape Mounted Rifles. There he found himself on 

 the threshold of the Hunter's Paradise. Sport had more 

 attractions for him than soldiering, and he resigned his 

 commission after a few months' service. His mind was 

 now made up. He would explore that vast, unknown 

 interior, teeming with game, of which as yet scarcely 

 more than the fringes had been touched. He sought 

 out traders well acquainted with Griqualand, Bechuana, 

 and the country beyond the great Orange River, and 

 got as much information from them as he could, though 

 it was not much they could give him, beyond hints as to 

 his outfit. For they traded only with the Dutch Boers, 

 loading up their waggons from the large stores of the 

 merchants at Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth with 

 groceries, hardware, haberdashery, crockery, saddlery 

 in short, every conceivable article that the Boers, living 

 as they then did in isolated farmsteads, could possibly 

 want. 





