

240 



GIRAFFE HUNTING, 



; 





arrivals had come up, and were within ten or twelve 

 yards of my abiding place. 



Of course, my natural surmises led me to believe 

 that the newly-arrived wagg^ons were the property of 

 traders, by whom they would be accompanied, so I 

 resolved that if they observed me in such an igno- 

 minious position, it should not be as acting the part 

 of a passive spectator of the exciting scene that 

 was going on beneath me. Thus I tried to shoot, 

 but my footing was so uncertain, and my hold of the 

 tilt so precarious, that I could not take aim at the 

 pig with any certainty of success, for the brute was 

 jinking and charging, first to the right and then to 

 the left, within an area of a few feet, and that area 

 not a yard and a half from my legs. Why the 

 wrathful beast did not go further, or cut the camp 

 altogether, was for the very good reason that it could 

 not, being mobbed on all sides by over twenty dogs, 

 several of whom had a firm hold of the intruder. 

 The boar had used his tusks well, for by the light 

 afforded by moon and camp fire I could distinguish 

 several hounds that were already hors de combat. 

 The worst of such rejicontres is that it is always the 

 best dogs that come to grief, and I by no means 

 desired to add to the list of the wounded, or possibly 

 killed, by missing the " bosch vaark " and knocking 

 ' ver a dog. Piggy, from some cause or other, 

 lade an extra effort and succeeded in throwing off 

 many of his assailants — remember that these were 

 all more or less greyhounds, and, therefore, not 

 holders like bulldogs — and taking a hind wheel as a 

 trifling obstacle to his progress, charged at it, but 

 he had miscalculated the opposition that he had to 

 encounter. The wheel was a well-built one — how 

 could it be otherwise when it was constructed by 

 Weddherbairn of Grahamstown ? So the spokes 

 being firmly morticed in both nave and felloes, 

 and further made of well-seasoned wood, refused to 



