SOUTH AFRICA FIFTY YEARS AGO 4 i 



and the buffaloes, in large herds springbucks, hartebeests, 

 gnus, &c., filling in the picture ; together there could not 

 have been fewer than 3,000. I shot a couple of buffaloes 

 for the camp, and then inspanning passed ahead towards the 

 ridge of low hills, fifteen miles beyond, and running east 

 and west ; they told of a coming change of scenery, and 

 the next day we stood on the top of them to the south 

 600 miles of rolling plain, very similar to that immediately 

 below, lay between us and the southern sea ; but to the 

 north the scene was changed, the well-wooded and watered 

 valley of the Ba-Katla, a broken country full of game, was 

 stretched out before us in those days a hunter's paradise. 

 For the first time tracks of rhinoceros, giraffe, and other 

 unknown creatures were abundant, and we longed to cultivate 

 the closest relations with them. 



Without any just cause I thought myself a better sportsman 

 than my companion, and determined to seek my game alone, in 

 the hope that I might be the first to bag a rhinoceros. All 

 day long I followed, with an attendant Hottentot, a trail 

 of one of these animals, neglecting inferior game, but my 

 experience in African woodcraft was small then, and I believe 

 now that the spoor may have been a week old. At last, tired 

 and disgusted with my want of success in not coming up with 

 the object of my search, I shot an antelope, and returned rather 

 earlier than usual to the waggons, which had been ordered to 

 outspan under the range of hills. It was still daylight when 

 I reached them, and there sat my friend Murray, quiet, cool and 

 calm, very calm indeed. He greeted me with a nod and a 

 smile, and asked me what I had killed ? ' A buck,' I answered. 

 He said nothing, but kept on smiling serenely. Presently I 

 noticed a group of Kafirs sitting round their fire, and eating 

 as only Kafirs can eat. 'What are those brutes gorging them- 

 selves with ? ' I asked my quiet friend. ' Oh, only some of 

 the rhinoceroses I shot this afternoon.' I noted the plural, 

 the iron entered into my soul, but I merely said : ' Ah ! 

 indeed ! ' in an easy nonchalant way I flattered myself, as if 



