294 Bibliographical Notices. 



sportsman, possessing the bump of destructiveness in its fullest develop- 

 ment. At a very early age (16) he received a commission in the 

 army in India, where he was " entered" at the Lion and Tiger of the 

 East : but not satisfied with the gorgeous scenery and abundant game 

 which this continent produced ; hankering after the tales of travellers 

 in the plains of Southern Africa, and considering that country as 

 the "fairy land of sport," the "hunter's paradise," he took advan- 

 tage of a banishment to the Cape of Good Hope by the Medical Board, 

 to project a realization of his young dreams of the interior ; and, 

 having found a brother sportsman, they set out upon their expedition 

 with a retinue of horses, oxen, wagons, and Hottentots for Graham's 

 Town, travel by Kuruman or New Litakoo to the residence of Mose- 

 lekatse the Matabili chief, penetrate still northward to the river 

 Limpopo, and return again to the colony by the route of the Vaal 

 river. The volume is pleasantly written, and carries on both the 

 sportsman and naturalist. Some of the descriptions of scenery are 

 beautifully sketched ; and if some of the hunting scenes seem as if 

 coloured with a sportsman's licence, and the rifle is used with Ken- 

 tucky precision, we can excuse the enthusiasm which prompted the 

 tale, and knowing the feelings which excite the comparatively puny 

 European sportsman, who has hooked and mastered his first twenty- 

 five or thirty pound Salmon, or sees his first red Deer fall in the 

 glens of Athol or the wild forests of Ross, we can join with the 

 " tingling excitement" experienced when galloping side by side 

 with the " Swan-necked Giraffe," and the " bursting exultation" when 

 looking down on the first noble prize he had won. 



To the naturaUst the volume is interesting as detailing different 

 traits in the habits of several of the rare Antelopes. It confirms 

 the remarkable manner in which many of the species are restricted, 

 as it were almost by a line, within certain boundaries, and the incre- 

 dible troops in which they migrate and are spread over the interior, 

 where the arrows and pitfalls or traps of the natives, and the ravages 

 of the larger Felince are as nothing compared with the increase. All 

 these animals are said by Capt. Harris to be easily overtaken by a 

 good and well-conditioned horse, their very speed being their destruc- 

 tion, frantic terror at such novel enemies causing them to spend their 

 strength in the exertions of a few miles. The speed of the Camelopard 

 is extraordinary, but " our best horses were able to close with him in 

 about two miles." 



The great fault of Capt. Harris's book is a constant attempt to 

 assume a scientific character, which every page contradicts. There 

 is no precise information on the subject either of zoology or geogra- 



