568 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
along, and being afraid of losing him, should I dismount, 
among the extensive mimosa groves, with which the land- 
scape was now obscured, I sat in my saddle, loading and 
firing behind the elbow, and then placing myself across his 
‘path, until, the tears trickling from his full brilliant eye, his 
lofty frame began to totter, and at the seventeenth discharge 
from the deadly grooved bore, bowing his graceful head from 
the skies, his proud form was prostrate in the dust. Never 
shall I forget the tingling excitement of that moment! Alone, 
in the wild wood, I hurraed with bursting exultation, and 
unsaddling my steed, sank exhausted beside the noble prize 1 
had won. 
When I leisurely contemplated the massive frame before 
me, seeming as though it had been cast in a mould of brass, 
and protected by a hide of an inch and a half in thickness, 
it was no longer matter of astonishment, that a bullet dis- 
charged from a distance of eighty or ninety yards, should 
have been attended with little effect upon such amazing 
strength. The extreme height from the crown of the 
elegantly moulded head to the hoof of this magnificent 
animal, was eighteen feet; the whole being equally divided 
into neck, body, and leg. Two hours were passed in com- 
pleting a drawing; and Piet still not making his appearance, 
I cut off the tail, which exceeded five feet in length, and was 
measurelessly the most estimable trophy I had gained; but 
proceeding to saddle my horse, which I had left quietly 
grazing by the side of a running brook, my chagrin may be 
conceived, when I discovered that he had taken advantage 
of my occupation to free himself from his halter, and abscond. 
Being ten miles from the wagons, and in a perfectly strange 
country, I felt convinced that the only chance of recovering 
my pet, was by following the trail, whilst doing which with 
infinite, difficulty, the ground scarcely deigning to receive a 
foot-print, I had the satisfaction of meeting Piet and Mohany- 
som, who had fortunately seen and recaptured the truant 
