36 //<; GAME SHOOTING 



FIRST KXl'KDITION TO AFRICA 



Reduced from 12 st. 2 Ib. to 7 st. 12 Ib. by many attacks of 

 Indian fever caught during a shooting excursion in the valley 

 of the Bhavany River, I was sent to the Cape as a last chance 

 by the Madras doctors ; indeed, whilst lying in a semi-comatose 

 state, I heard one of them declare that I ought to have been 

 dead a year ago ; so all thanks to South Africa, say I ! I 

 gained strength by the voyage, and, shortly after reaching Cape 

 Town, hearing that a Mr. Murray, of Lintrose, near Cupar 

 Angus, had come from Scotland for the purpose of making a 

 shooting expedition to the interior, I determined to join him. 

 The resolve was carried out early in the spring of 1844 (the 

 beginning of the Cape winter) ; we started out from Graham's 

 Town to Colesberg, buying on the way horses, oxen, dogs, 

 waggons, and stores, crossed the Orange River, and set our 

 faces northwards. We were all bitten in those days by Captain 

 afterwards Sir Cornwallis Harris, whose book, published 

 about 1837, was the first to give any notion of the capabilities 

 of South Africa for big game shooting, and, Harris excepted, 

 'we were the first that ever burst into that "sunny "sea' as 

 sportsmen. Murray was an excellent kind-hearted gentleman, 

 rather too old perhaps for an expedition of this kind, as he felt 

 the alternations of the climate very much ; and no wonder, for 



1 have known the thermometer to register 92 in the shade at 



2 P.M., and 30 at 8 P.M. I was younger, and though still weak 

 from the effects of fever, the dry air of the uplands daily gave 

 me vigour, and the absolute freedom of the life was delightful 

 to me. Just at first I had to become accustomed to the 

 many little annoyances of missing oxen, strayed horses, &c. ; 

 but when our waggons became our home, and our migratory 

 state our life, all anxious care vanished. Things would be 

 put right somehow ; there was no use worrying ourselves ; 

 what had been yesterday would be to-morrow. What though 



