30 ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



While I was laying in these stores, I once or twice 

 amused myself by riding in quest of rheebok in the 

 rugged and precipitous high grounds lying immediately 

 to the south of Grahamstown. On one of these occa- 

 sions I was accompanied by my cousin, Colonel Camp- 

 bell of the 91st (one of the bravest and most distin- 

 guished officers in the late Kaffir war, and, withal, about 

 the best rifle-shot and keenest sportsman then in the' 

 colony), a brother of Captain Campbell of Skipness, 

 the author of the "Old Forest-Ranger," a work highly 

 approved among Indian Nimrods. The rheebojc is a 

 species of antelope generally found in all mountain dis- 

 tricts throughout Southern Africa, from Table Mount- 

 ain to the latitude of Kuruman or New Litakoo. Of 

 the rheebok there are two varieties : the rhooye-rhee- 



and Dickson of Edinbargh — the latter a two-grooved, the most j)erfect 

 and useful rifle I ever had the pleasure of using ; one heavy single-barrel- 

 ed German rifle, carrying twelve to the pound. This last was an old 

 companion, which had been presented to me, when a boy, by my dear 

 and much-lamented friend and brother-sportsman, the late James Duff, 

 of Innes House. With this rifle, about ten years before, I had brought 

 down my first stag on the Faps of Jura, and subsequently bowled over 

 many a princely master-stag and graceful roebuck in his summer-coat, 

 throughout the glens and forests of my native land. The Purdey was 

 also a tried friend, both it and the heavy German having b^en with me 

 in several campaigns on the plains and in the junglea of Hisdostan. I 

 had also three stout double-barreled guns for rough work when hard 

 riding and quick loading is required. Several lead-ladles of various 

 sizes, a whole host of bullet-molds, loading-rods, shot-belts, powder- 

 flasks.and shooting-belts ; three cwt. of lead, 50 lbs. of pewter for hard- 

 ening the balls to be used in destroying the larger game ; 10,000 prepar- 

 ed leaden b allots, bags of shot of all sizes, 1 00 lbs. of fine sporting gun- 

 powder, 300 lbs. of coarse gunpowder, about 50,000 best percussion 

 caps, 2000 gun-flints, greased patches and cloth to be converted into tl\e 

 same. I carried also several spare yokes, yoke-skeys, whip-sticks, 

 rheims, and straps, two sets of spare linch-pins, all of which last articles 

 belong to the wagon. With the above, and £200 in cash which I car- 

 ried with me, I considered myself prepared to undertake a journey of 

 at least twelve months among Boers or Bechuanas, independent of 

 either. 



