76 SEARCH AFTER A LEOPARD. 



village of D'Urban, where I found a party of ten or 

 twelve as rough-looking customers as one could desire to 

 see : I am sure a leopard would not have had courage 

 even to look at them. If beards or dirt made African 

 sportsmen, I thought I must be in a very hot-bed of 

 them. I soon saw that the party were more of the style 

 of sporting-men than sportsmen ; they were liberally im- 

 bibing brandy and water, which they wanted to force 

 upon me to steady my nerves; an auxiliary I begged to 

 decline, first, on account of the hour (10 A.M.), and, 

 secondly, because the shaking hands of many present 

 made me doubt its steadying qualities. We started in 

 two divisions, one taking the trail into the bush where 

 the pig had been made pork, while the other entered 

 where the leopard generally came out. 



The cover was so very dense and thick that we were 

 obliged to crawl on all fours, great care being necessary 

 to prevent the triggers or cocks of the gun from getting 

 set and caught: we were all particularly requested to 

 be silent ; but the hairy men would talk. After creep- 

 ing 150 yards, we came to some of the bones of the pig, 

 evidently just left by the leopard : we watched carefully 

 every gloomy part of the surrounding bush to discover 

 the leopard, but could see nothing. Suddenly a bird 

 flitted away close to us, and one of the bearded gentle- 

 men, who had appeared the greatest swaggerer, called for 

 us to look out, as the leopard was coming. I immediately 

 heard the click-click of double-barrelled guns coming 

 to full cock, and saw a gentleman a few yards to my right 

 pointing his gun straight at me; I shouted to him to 



