64 VAEIETIES OF GAME. 



up the coast. The ivory is valuable, as it is curved in 

 the shape of the nautical sextant, and being very hard, 

 is especially adapted for the fine lines used upon Vernier 

 scales ; the skin is cut up into whips, called by the colo- 

 nists sjamboks; the flesh is good eating, tasting when 

 salted something like pork. 



The elephant (Loxodonta africana) : male twelve feet 

 high, droops towards the tail; extreme length eighteen 

 feet; colour blackish-brown; tail short, tufted with 

 coarse hair at the end; ears very large, and front of head 

 round; tusks large, from three to seven feet in length, 

 weighing nearly a hundred pounds : female smaller, with 

 tusks, except solitary specimens. Gregarious; found in 

 large troops in the forests ; wary, fierce, and vindictive. 



Besides the animals that I have described, there were 

 baboons, monkeys, rock-rabbits (the hyrax), a species of 

 hare, porcupines, the ratel, many small vermin, such as 

 the ichneumon, &c., in great numbers. All these animals 

 were to be found in the Natal district in numbers, whilst 

 across the Drookensburg Mountains were camelopards, 

 rhinoceros, zebras, koodoo, wildebeest, guoos, sassybys, 

 water-buck, roan-antelope, blesbok, springbok, pallahs, 

 ostriches, and many other magnificent animals, in countless 

 herds. 



A curious creature inhabits the African forest, many 

 specimens were found by me in the Berea, near Natal ; it 

 is called the Manis. It looks like a large and scaly 

 lizard, being covered with hard scales, or plates, like thick 

 short leaves; when lying on the ground motionless, it 

 resembles a vegetable. Its body is long; tail twice the 



