664 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



character, where the chances were against my being able 

 to regain my wagons that night. I, however, resolved to 

 chance everything ; and directing my men to catch and 

 saddle Colesburg, I proceeded in haste to buckle on my 

 shooting-belt and spurs, and in two minutes I was in the 

 saddle. The giraffes stood looking at the wagons until I 

 was within sixty yards of them, when, galloping round a 

 thick bushy tree, under cover of which I had ridden, I 

 suddenly beheld a sight the most astounding that a sports- 

 man's eye can encounter. Before me stood a troop of ten 

 colossal giraffes, the majority of which were from seventeen 

 to eighteen feet high. On beholding me they at once made 

 off, twisting their long tails over their backs, making a loud, 

 switching noise with them, and cantered along at an easy 

 pace, which, however, obliged Colesburg to put his best foot 

 foremost to keep up with them. 



The sensations which I felt on this occasion were different 

 from anything that I had before experienced, during a long 

 sporting career. My senses were so absorbed by the won- 

 drous and beautiful sight before me, that I rode along like 

 one entranced, and I felt inclined to disbelieve that I was 

 hunting living things of this world. The ground was firm 

 and favorable for riding. At every stride I gained upon the _ 

 giraffes, and after a short burst at a swinging gallop I was 

 in the middle of them, and turned the finest cow out of the 

 herd. On finding herself driven from her comrades and 

 hotly pursued, she increased her pace, and cantered along 

 with tremendous strides, clearing an amazing extent of 

 ground at every bound ; while her neck and breast coming 

 in contact with the dead old branches of the trees, were con- 

 tinually strewing them in my path. In a few minutes I was 

 riding within five feet of her stern, and, firing at a gallop, 

 I sent a bullet into her back. Increasing my pace, I next 

 rode alongside, and, placing the muzzle of my rifle within a 

 few feet of her, I fired my second shot behind the shoulder ; 



