608 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



and can obtain a taste once more of a " corn dodger," and 

 a little " bald-face" or " old rye !" 



These are what we call Hunters in America, and such 

 are the comparative conditions of suffering and danger in 

 the life here and in South Africa ! yet Harris, on his return 

 from his South African Expedition, with great simplicity, 

 enumerates it among his other hardships, that he had lived 

 for four or five months upon nothing but the monotonous 

 round of tea, coffee, brandy, bread and meat ! ! ! ! 



Our Hunters and Hunter-Naturalists do not withal con- 

 sider themselves heroes by any means and would laugh at 

 you for the supposition ; such things are too much matters of 

 course with them. Yet I do not the less respect the manly 

 and dashing achievements of these British South African 

 adventurers, nor hesitate to deny to them in their fine zeal 

 for " specimens," the true and hardy spirit of the Hunter- 

 Naturalist. I would insist, nevertheless, upon having it 

 understood, as before hinted, that some things are compara- 

 tive as well as others. With one more short picture from 

 Harris, I am done with the buffalo. He says while on the 

 Limpopo 



Wild buffaloes, too, might often be seen from the wagons. 

 Riding up a narrow defile, flanked by steep banks, I one 

 morning found myself suddenly confronted with the van of 

 a vast troop of these formidable animals, which were ascend- 

 ing from the opposite side their malevolent gray eyes 

 scowling beneath a threatening brow. Unable to turn, 

 they must have charged over me, had my horse not contrived 

 to scramble up the bank ; from the top of which I fired both 

 barrels into the leader, a ponderous bull, whose appearance 

 stamped him father of the herd. Falling on his knees, the 

 patriarch was instantly trampled under foot by his followers 

 as they charged, bellowing, in close squadrons down the 

 declivity, with the fury of a passing whirlwind, and making 

 the woods re-echo to the clatter of their hoofs. 



