WILD DOGS AND HYJENAS. 273 



close this chapter more appropriately than by 

 quoting the words of the dear old friend so often 

 alluded to in these pages General McMaster for 

 the two instances he gives of the cowardice of 

 the hyaena are so vivid that any attempt of mine 

 to describe it would pale before his more powerful 

 pen. In the first instance I was the unlucky 

 wight who got the fall, and the hyaena, though 

 speared, eventually got into a big earth where we 

 had to leave him. 



c The most ludicrous instances of animal coward- 

 ice I have ever seen have been displayed by 

 hyenas. Once, whilst beating a hill for hog, a 

 hyaena broke past us ; in despair of more noble 

 game we rode at him, and, after a long and fast 

 run, I had slightly speared the ungainly brute, 

 hardly drawing blood, and merely " ruffling the 

 feathers," so to speak, when one of the other 

 horses rolled over with his rider in the black 

 cotton ground we were then crossing ; the rider 

 lost his reins, and the Arab, an old hog-hunter, 

 picked himself up and forthwith pursued the 

 hyaena, whose abject fear and efforts to escape as 

 he shuffled along with tail between his legs, and 

 quarters more tucked in and drooped than ever, 

 when the old horse bit at them, made him look 

 the most miserable creature I have ever seen, and 

 a wonderful contrast to the game old Arab, who, 



T 



