DANGEROUS COUNTRY. 105 



time. Upon telling this to a facetious friend who came to 

 look at the trophy, he said that it was no wonder, con- 

 sidering the quantity of lead that was in him. 



I had several very pretty courses after wounded buck 

 around the country near this village, or town as the 

 Natalians would like it called. On one occasion, by 

 keeping the hills, I saw my dog follow and pull down 

 very neatly a wounded reh-bok. This dog would occa- 

 sionally point, but, having a good dash of the foxhound in 

 him, he made a useful servant-of-all-work. 



If I shot a large reitbok, and could not obtain assist- 

 ance from Kaffirs to convey him home, or found him too 

 heavy to lift on to my pony, I used to take the two 

 haunches, and pass the girths through a slit cut between 

 the back sinews of each leg and the bone, and thus mount 

 them astride behind the saddle, leaving the remainder 

 of the venison either to be sent for afterwards, or as an 

 offering to the jackals, &c. 



I was walking one day about the kloofs near this town, 

 when I heard a noise like running water; I listened 

 attentively, and was convinced I heard its ripple, although 

 the ground was apparently unbroken. Approaching care- 

 fully through the grass, I came suddenly to the mouth of 

 a naturally-formed pit about forty feet deep, with a stream 

 running through it at the bottom; the aperture was 

 only about eight feet wide, and quite concealed by long 

 grass ; but below, it opened out considerably. This was a 

 nice sort of place to fall into when galloping after a 

 buck, or making a short cut at night. There is no one 

 here to stick up a post with " dangerous" on it, or to 



