ALAS! POOR MARIO. 363 



dant, and that on the morrow they will show me ele- 

 phants, giraffes, buffalo, or aught else I desire. I have 

 had too much experience, or am getting too old, to be 

 kept awake at night by anticipating sport, so soon 

 went to sleep, and till day broke in the morning I 

 never opened my eyes. 



During the night, however, an adventure occurred 

 at the bushmen's camp, about two hundred yards off. 

 When near Ladysmith, in Natal, I bought a dog, 

 resembling more a harrier than any other breed, for a 

 few shillings. It was a spiteful, bad-tempered, cowardly 

 brute, and always preferred the society of the servants 

 to my own. Consequently I did not love it rather the 

 reverse, although I had never shown it any unkindness. 

 However, this was the kind of brute it was if the fore- 

 loper was going to the south to herd his cattle, and I in 

 the reverse direction to shoot, Mario, so named because 

 of his grand voice, would give me the cold shoulder 

 and follow the former. "Well, he had preferred leaving 

 the wagon and taking shelter under the lee of 

 one of the heathen, doubtless having secured a con- 

 siderable quantity of the sleeping man's caross over 

 his back, when a hungry leopard spied him, hooked him 

 out with his paw, and carried him off, in spite of the 

 rescue attempted by the bushmen, armed with fire- sticks. 



Being deprived of this dog, I did not mind, but the 

 bushmen assured me that the leopard having been suc- 

 cessful in his first effort, would not cease to come 

 nightly till he had carried off every one of my favourites. 



To prevent such a result, soon after I rose I made 

 all my employes turn to and cut sufficient prickly 

 mimosa to erect a formidable screen on the three sides 

 of the wagon next the woods. 



