322 LARGE GAME. CHAP. vn. 



older and less active men remained, proceeded more 

 leisurely, after having waited long enough to hear that 

 the two sides had met and that the circle was complete. 



It was the latter portion of the party that I joined, 

 partly to escape the extra work that I should have with 

 the others, partly because the game, which would mostly 

 be put up by them as our side would advance very slowly, 

 would consequently chiefly come our way. In a few 

 minutes the hunt began ; antelopes of various kinds, but 

 principally duiker and reed-buck, could be seen on foot, 

 each attended by its pack of curs, while the black forms 

 of the natives gleamed in the sunshine as they flitted to 

 and fro, guarding what small gaps occurred between man 

 and man. Now and then, as an antelope broke through 

 them, the tribal hunting-cry of the men could be heard as 

 they flung their assagais at it. At last an unfortunate 

 duiker, having so far escaped the many dangers from men 

 and dogs with which it was threatened, ran within a few 

 yards of my next neighbour, who having, like myself, a fast 

 hound, had remained outside the now rapidly converging 

 circle ; this he slipped at it, and a few seconds more de- 

 cided its fate. Hardly had my ear caught the bleat that 

 told of its capture, before a loud shout warned me some- 

 thing was coming my way, and almost instantly three 

 reed-buck broke covert below me, and came straight up 

 the rise. I crouched in the long grass until the foremost, 

 a doe and a yearling, had passed within a few feet of me, 

 and then, springing up, slipped my black hound, whose 

 head I had hitherto firmly held between my knees, and 

 cheered him on to the buck that followed them ; and at 

 the same moment my boy slipped the other hound. Away 



