564 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
character, where the chances were against my being able 
to regain my wagons that night. I, however, resolved to 
chance everything;,and directing my men to catch and 
saddle Colesburg, I proceeded in haste to buckle on my 
shooting-belt and spurs, and in two minutes I was in the 
saddle. The giraffes stood looking at the wagons until I 
was within sixty yards of them, when, galloping round a 
thick bushy tree, under cover of which I had ridden, I 
suddenly beheld a sight the most astounding that a sports- 
man’s eye can encounter. Before me stood a troop of ten 
colossal giraffes, the majority of which were from seventeen 
to eighteen feet high. On beholding me they at once made 
off, twisting their long tails over their backs, making a loud, 
switching noise with them, and cantered along at an easy 
pace, which, however, obliged Colesburg to put his best foot 
foremost to keep up with them. 
The sensations which I felt on this occasion were different 
from anything that I had before experienced, during a long 
sporting career. My senses were so absorbed by the won- 
drous and beautiful sight before me, that I rode along like 
one entranced, and I felt inclined to disbelieve that I was 
hunting living things of this world. The ground was firm 
and favorable for riding. At every stride I gained upon the 
giraffes, and after a short burst at a swinging gallop I was 
in the middle of them, and turned the finest cow out of the 
herd. On finding herself driven from her comrades and 
hotly pursued, she increased her pace, and cantered along 
with tremendous strides, clearing an amazing extent of 
ground at every bound; while her neck and breast coming 
in contact with the dead old branches of the trees, were con- 
tinually strewing them in my path. In a few minutes I was 
riding within five feet of her stern, and, firing at a gallop, 
I sent a bullet into her back. Increasing my pace, I next 
rode alongside, and, placing the muzzle of my rifle within a 
few feet of her, I fired my second shot behind the shoulder ; 
