568 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



along, and being afraid of losing him, should I dismount, 

 among the extensive mimosa groves, with which the land- 

 scape was now obscured, I sat in my saddle, loading and 

 firing behind the elbow, and then placing myself across his 

 path, until, the tears trickling from his full brilliant eye, his 

 lofty frame began to totter, and at the seventeenth discharge 

 from the deadly grooved bore, bowing his graceful head from 

 the skies, his proud form was prostrate in the dust. Never 

 shall I forget the tingling excitement of that moment ! Alone, 

 in the wild wood, I hurraed with bursting exultation, and 

 unsaddling my steed, sank exhausted beside the noble prize I 

 had won. 



When I leisurely contemplated the massive frame before 

 me, seeming as though it had been cast in a mould of brass, 

 and protected by a hide of an inch and a half in thickness, 

 it was no longer matter of astonishment, that a bullet dis- 

 charged from a distance of eighty or ninety yards, should 

 have been attended with little effect upon such amazing 

 strength. The extreme height from the crown of the 

 elegantly moulded head to the hoof of this magnificent 

 animal, was eighteen feet ; the whole being equally divided 

 into neck, body, and leg. Two hours were passed in com- 

 pleting a drawing ; and Piet still not making his appearance, 

 I cut off the tail, which exceeded five feet in length, and was 

 measurelessly the most estimable trophy I had gained ; but 

 proceeding to saddle my horse, which I had left quietly 

 grazing by the side of a running brook, my chagrin may be 

 conceived, when I discovered that he had taken advantage 

 of my occupation to free himself from his halter, and abscond. 

 Being ten miles from the wagons, and in a perfectly strange 

 country, I felt convinced that the only chance of recovering 

 my pet, was by following the trail, whilst doing which with 

 infinite difficulty, the ground scarcely deigning to receive a 

 foot-print, I had the satisfaction of meeting Piet and Mohany- 

 com, who had fortunately seen and recaptured the truant. 



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