3i8 



A Breath from the Veldt 



heavily. One of these oxen lay down and died the same evening, and with the 

 assistance of Piet I got him skinned, to see how the bites had affected him. 

 As far as I could make out, the poison had entered at only three points — 

 behind both shoulders and near the kidney. Its course was shown by a purplish 

 streak, and around the point of entry the whole of the flesh and fat within a 

 radius of i foot had turned a greenish yellow. Whether the fly inserts the 

 poison first, and sucks the blood afterwards, or vice versa, seems to be as yet a 

 moot point amongst the authorities ; but this at least is certain — that water 

 applied to the wound causes the poison to take effect at once. If, therefore, an 

 ox stung in the belly gets wet by passing through a stream, its fate is sealed. 



The day had come at last when I had to say " Good-bye " to my dear old 

 friend Oom Roelef Together had we tasted the hopes and fears, the sweets 

 and disappointments of the happy hunting-grounds, and under these influences 

 our comradeship had ripened into the affection of brothers ; for no form of 

 existence brings men closer together than the wild free life of the hunter. . The 

 charm which I felt in his society was perhaps, in a great measure, due to our 

 mutual love of Nature and of the excitement of the chase ; but the longer one 

 knew him the more one's interest and affection were enlisted by the simplicity 

 and unaffected earnestness of the man's whole nature. When Oom Roelef said 

 a thing, he meant it in its most literal sense, and in all he said or did one 

 could not fail to notice the kindness and generosity of his heart. We seldom 

 meet with our ideals in this life ; but in my mind old Oom will ever stand 

 out as a model of what a hunter and a true gentleman should be. Bret Harte 

 has given us a similar character in " Luke," in words so appropriate to the man 

 of whom I am now writing that I cannot refrain from quoting them : — 



" We are going to-day," she said, " and I thought I would say Good-bye 

 To you in your own house, Luke — these woods and the bright blue sky ! 

 You've always been kind to us, Luke, and papa has found you still 

 As good as the air he breathes, and wholesome as Laurel-tree Hill. 



"And we'll always think of you, Luke, as the thing we could not take away ; 

 The balsam that dwells in the woods, the rainbow that lives in the spray. 

 And you'll sometimes think of me, Luke, as you know you once used to say, 

 A rifle smoke blown through the woods, a moment, but never to stay." 



" As good as the air he breathed, and wholesome as Laurel-tree Hill." Such 

 natures lift us above ourselves, making us feel that the world is not quite so 

 bad a place nor human nature quite so despicable as some of our latter-day 

 pessimists would have us believe. 



As the old man wrung my hand at parting he said, amongst many kind 



