OUR PIG-STICKING ENDS SUCCESSFULLY. 229 



fast that he appeared all arms and legs ; but, wily man ! 

 he had shut the entrance to the earth with several boughs 

 of the prickliest of mimosa. The stricken creature 

 rushed at this as if it were nothing expected to go 

 through as a bird would a spider's cobweb ; but it had 

 reckoned without its host, and got stuck in consequence. 

 The 'cute coloured man saw this, retraced his steps as 

 rapidly as he retreated, and over the top of the orifice 

 plied his assegai so dexterously, and with such good 

 effect, that soon piggy became pork. I thought my 

 thrust should have disabled the animal, and so it would 

 with any creature possessed of less than seven lives ; for 

 it had gone fifteen inches into the centre of the back 

 close to the spine. 



After a shake, and a good rub at my eyes, I did not 

 find myself much worse, except in feelings, for few of 

 us like to be taken down a peg by our own species, let 

 alone by a pig. But my attendant was sadly bruised 

 and scratched; however, he doubtlessly harboured no 

 after-feelings of malice, but made it up by feasting to 

 repletion on the flesh of the perpetrator's nearest 

 relative. This animal was one of that species and 

 common all over the northern portion of the country 

 which the Boers vz&fleck-vark. 



I had scarcely got back to the wagon, when a jackal, 

 the ordinary grey species, called by the Kaffirs norwall, 

 of the skin of which the warmest and finest carosses are 

 made, crossed the road in presence of the dogs. They 

 all saw him, and a grand chase ensued right out in 

 the open in which he was run into after going about 

 a mile. 



The other species found here is called the silver 

 jackal. It has a black saddle-mark on the centre of its 



