366 LARGE GAME. CHAP. vm. 



was broken, and when half an hour afterwards a hunter 

 came up on the spoor and claimed it, he told me that he 

 had fired at it standing not more than twenty yards off, 

 that it fell on the spot as if dead, but that, instantly 

 jumping up, it had since run six miles in this circular lop- 

 sided fashion. On cutting it up we found that his ball 

 had passed through the chest, had broken the shoulder- 

 blade, and running down outside the ribs had splintered 

 the upper bone of the hind-leg. So difficult is it to kill 

 them, that I have shot, and seen shot, as many as a dozen 

 in a single day, not one of which was got, and for all that 

 we rarely, if ever, found one dead of its wounds, while 

 on the other hand, there was an old bull that we knew 

 had three bullets in him, one of which had broken his 

 shoulder, which I used to see every day for nearly two 

 months, and which had then almost completely recovered. 

 It is unnecessary to describe at length the marks 

 by which the four different species of zebra are dis- 

 tinguished, and it will be sufficient to say that there are 

 only two which can be known apart at a glance, viz., the 

 true zebra and the quagga. The former well-known 

 animal is, as a rule, only to be found in the thorn dis- 

 tricts, while the latter, which is larger and very differently 

 striped, inhabits the immense treeless plains of the Free 

 State and Trans- Vaal Republic. Both can be ridden into 

 without much difficulty, though there can be but little 

 pleasure in killing them in comparison with other animals 

 more truly game, and, except by the natives who are 

 passionately fond of their flesh and even prefer it to all 

 other kinds, they would probably go unharmed by man 

 were their skins not an article of commerce. One trait 



