SOUTHERN AFRICA. 213 



headlong" charg-e from several quarters at the same moment, 

 and we were often so surrounded by small detachments^ that 

 it appeared doubtful which party would be oblig-ed to quit 

 the field. The sound of our voices, however, uniformly 

 turned the scale, and declared man the victor. Among- 

 several hundred females and calves, we could find but one 

 bull j and, as we were tracking- him on horseback through a 

 heavy forest, by his life-blood welling* from fifty wounds, a 

 savag-e rhinoceros, dashed out of a bush into the very middle 

 of our party, overthrowing- several, but injuring- none. An- 

 dries, thoug-h he was ever thrusting' upon us his code of 

 sage laws reg-arding- elephant hunting*, was always the first 

 to infringe it ; and wantonly firing at a peaceably disposed 

 rhinoceros, while we were upon the hot trail of elephants 

 in the early part of the day, his horse got away, and he 

 was knocked over, the damage sustained by the hinder part 

 of his leathern trousers, which were rent by the animal's 

 horn, proving now nearly we had been bereft, for ever, of 

 his valuable services. 



Both our vehicles were now so crammed with spolia, that 

 being unable to find room for any more ivory, we were 

 reluctantly compelled to leave the ground strewed with that 

 valuable commodity. Great difficulty was experienced in 

 getting our heavily laden waggons clear of the formidable 

 belt of wooded hillocks which, intersected by deep ravines, 

 form the suburbs of the Cashan range. In some places the 

 paths worn by the huge tenants of this almost trackless 

 region being too narrow, it was found necessary to send 

 a party of pioneers to widen them— thus literally cutting 

 our way through the country, and making the aged, and 

 hitherto silent, forest ring to the unwonted sound of the axe. 



Scarcely a day passed without our seehig two or three 

 lions, but, like the rest of the animal creation, they uniform- 

 ly retreated when disturbed by the ai)proach of man. How- 



