384 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 
A Hunting Expedition to the Transvaal. By D. FerNanpez Das 
Neves. Translated from the Portuguese by Marrana 
Monteiro. London: George Bell & Son. 1879. 
Our relations just now with the Transvaal are such as to 
render any information concerning that country and the native 
races which inhabit it of more than ordinary interest to English 
readers, particularly if that information be supplied by one who 
is able to write from personal experience. 
The author of the present work, having spent thirteen years 
in the Transvaal, has had unusual opportunities for informing 
himself of the nature and resources of the country from a 
mercantile point of view, and of the character and mode of life of 
the different tribes with whom he was almost daily brought in 
contact while pursuing his ayocation, that of an ivory trader. 
The success which seems to have attended him in his travels is 
doubtless to be attributed to his humane and sensible mode of 
treating the natives. Instead of alarming, threatening, and 
endeavouring to coerce them, he always approached them in a 
friendly way, respected their customs, and made them liberal 
presents in exchange for anything he wanted, whether ivory or 
food. Now and then he fell in with people who, in spite of all 
his endeavours to persuade them to the contrary, would persist 
in believing that his intention was to dispossess them of their 
goods and kill them; and many a plot had he to upset by a 
counter plot, and by firm, energetic action. Some of his escapes 
were truly marvellous. On one occasion a hunter came running 
into camp with the intelligence that King Mahuéoé with eight 
hundred Kaffirs were approaching with the express intention of 
killing him. In a perfect downpour of rain, he had just time 
to reach the ford on the river Bembe, distant half an hour’s 
march from where he was camped, and cross to the opposite 
side before the swollen torrent became unfordable, and, by the 
interposition of a natural barrier, effectually prevented his enemies 
from following him. 
At times the author found himself in great straits for food, 
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