THE TERRIBLE. 



Who, that has looked on the meek, deer-like face 

 of a kangaroo, would imagine that any danger 

 could attend a combat with so gentle a creature? 

 Yet it is well known that strong dogs are often 

 killed by it, the kangaroo seizing and hugging the 

 dog with its fore-paws, while with one kick of its 

 muscular hind-leg, it rips up its antagonist, and 

 tears out its bowels. Even to man there is peril, 

 as appears from the following narrative. One of 

 the hunter s dogs had been thus despatched, and 

 he thus proceeds: — 



" Exasperated by the irreparable loss of my poor 

 dog, and excited by the then unusual scene before 

 me, I hastened to revenge; nothing doubting, 

 that, with one fell swoop of my formidable club, 

 my enemy would be prostrate at my feet. Alas I 

 the fates, and the still more remorseless white 

 ants, frustrated my murderous intentions, and all 

 but left me a victim to my strange and active 

 foe. No sooner had the heavy blow I aimed de- 

 scended on his head than my weapon shivered 

 into a thousand pieces,* and I found myself in the 

 giant embrace of my antagonist, who was hug- 

 ging me with rather too warm a demonstration 

 of friendship, and ripping at me in a way by no 

 means pleasant. My only remaining dog, too, 

 now thoroughly exhausted by wounds and loss of 

 blood, and apparently quite satisfied of her mas- 

 ter's superiority, remained a mute and motionless 

 spectator of the new and unequal contest. 



"Notwithstanding my utmost efforts to release 

 myself from the grasp of the brute, they were 

 unavailing; and I found my strength gradually 

 diminishing, whilst, at the same time, my sight 

 was obscured by the blood which now flowed 



* The reader will And an explanation of this fact at page 106, 

 supra. 



16 241 



