IMPROMPTU SPORT ON THE VELDT 189 



broken wing. To my disgust, one of the empty cartridge 

 cases jammed, and before I could extract it a nice little 

 lot of pink-billed teal passed clean over my head, and 

 with merry cacklings away they sped to some quiet and 

 peaceful pool across the veldt. There was no time 

 to weep over spilt milk, or, rather, sped fowl, however, 



for H was blazing away almost as quickly as he could 



load and fire, and the lagoon seemed alive with fowl. 

 Suddenly loud cries, in strangely mixed Dutch and Zulu, 

 of " Allemaytig ; fas op, baas, pas op, nansiya schellem " 

 (Almighty ; look out, sir, look out, there goes the 

 scoundrel), reached my ears, but, owing to the dense 

 clumps of reeds which intervened between the boys and 

 my blind, I could see nothing bearing the slightest 

 resemblance to a schellem. As I watched, however, the 

 hideous, tusk-armed snout of a huge wart-hog suddenly 

 emerged from the reed-cover about 150 yards distant from 

 me. Unfortunately I had that morning taken out a 

 new and almost full -choked 12 -bore instead of my old 

 combined rifle and shot gun, with which I might have 

 made pretty certain of the pig. The wart-hog proved 

 himself an excellent swimmer, and in a very short time 

 he was on terra firma and slinging along towards a wooded 

 kloof in the neighbouring kopjes, at a pace that would 

 have put the best of our Basuto ponies on their mettle. 

 It was with a sigh of regret that I watched him fleeting 

 across the level, for he was a big fellow, and would have 

 provided several days' meat for the boys, besides tit-bits, 

 in the shape of fry, tongue, etc., for H and myself. 



