IMPROMPTU SPORT ON THE VELDT 193 



thin and patchy," continued he, as he puffed out a great 

 cloud of Boer tobacco smoke, in the vain endeavour to 

 drive away a swarm of bloodthirsty mosquitoes, which 

 buzzed round his head like a swarm of bees round a hive. 

 Now, considering our little expedition could boast but 

 eleven Kaffirs and three mongrel, ferrety-looking curs, the 

 latter being, as Jacob very tersely remarked, " useless 

 schellems not worthy their sJcoff,'' the suggestion even 

 appeared somewhat absurd. However, as the day was 

 still young, and we were not to trek on till night, we 

 agreed to beat the kloof: and our henchman was de- 

 spatched to the outspan to exchange the 12 -bores for a 

 pair of combined rifle-shot guns, and to bring out the 

 boys and their schellem hunds. 



In due course the Kaffirs, headed by Jacob, came 

 stringing across the veldt, laughing and jabbering like a 

 troop of monkeys, the rear-guard being formed by the 

 leash of nondescript, ferret-barrelled, slouching curs 

 mentioned above. In truth, a sorrier-looking party of 

 beaters it would have been hard to find, and at the 

 moment I would have laid long odds on the pig. 



The kloof, which lay at no great distance from our 

 resting-place, was formed by a funnel-shaped cleft 

 running between two boulder-strewn kopjes, a distance 

 of perhaps a quarter of a mile, the narrow part or 

 entrance leading into the open veldt. A little tree-fern 

 fringed stream of iron-discoloured water trickled down 

 from its source amongst the hills, and wormed a sinuous 

 course through the dense scrub-bush, with which in parts 



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