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242 



GIRAFFE HUNTING. 



ti'onal, that it could not for a moment have been pre- 

 meditated, etc., but all the answers that I could get 

 to such explanations, simply resulted in that the fair 

 one would not have minded if it had been a black 

 man — that she was accustomed to see, but " a 

 white man, oh ! oh ! oh ! it was too bad, too bad," 

 and sobs could be heard to follow after the above 

 speech. 



At length I retired, discomfited and grieved, and 

 thought over the whole affair ; the conclusion I came 

 to was that a naked black man must be eminently 

 more attractive — or less repulsive— than a partially 

 naked white one. 



As I write this, it recalls to me a remark, made in 

 my hearing by a lady of standing in Natal, who long 

 had been resident in that colony. She was surrounded 

 by a number of lady passengers as the ship took up 

 her position outside the bar off Point Durban. A 

 surf-boat, loaded with nude natives, came alongside 

 to assist in discharging cargo. The new arrivals 

 from England were naturally shocked, and would 

 doubtless have fled to the sanctuary of their cabins, 

 when the old habitu^ exclaimed, in assuring terms, 

 '* Don't go, don't go, dears ; that's nothing at all 

 when you are used to it." 



The fair unrecognized trecked at daybreak next 

 morning, but not before William had learned who 

 she was, and the object of her journey through this 

 wide and sparsely-inhabited country. So to satisfy 

 curiosity I will state she was the young Boer wife 

 of an English trader, who (the vrouw) was alike re- 

 markable for the solidity and proportions of her 

 charms as for the extent of her purse. With all 

 these attractions she failed to be able to keep her 

 swain at home, however — some, in fact, were mali- 

 cious enough to say that he had other attractions of 

 a different colour in a distant Matabele kraal. Of 

 course, this was a canard invented by some defeated 



