170 SPORTING. 



enduring all the hardships of that trying mode of life, with little 

 else but meat of game to subsist on, but they willingly went seven 

 hundred or eight hundred miles to Graham's Town, receiving for 

 wages only a musket worth fifteen shillings. 



No one ever deceived them except one man ; and as I believed 

 that he was afflicted with a slight degree of the insanity of greedi- 

 ness, I upheld the honor of the English name by paying his 

 debts. As the guides of Mr. Gumming were furnished through 

 my influence, and usually got some strict charges as to their 

 behavior before parting, looking upon me in the light of a fa- 

 ther, they always came to give me an account of their service, 

 and told most of those hunting adventures which have since been 

 given to the world, before we had the pleasure of hearing our 

 friend relate them himself by our own fireside. I had thus a 

 tolerably good opportunity of testing their accuracy, and I have 

 no hesitation in saying that for those who love that sort of thing 

 Mr. Cumming's book conveys a truthful idea of South African 

 hunting. Some things in it require explanation, but the numbers 

 of animals said to have been met with and killed are by no 

 means improbable, considering the amount of large game then in 

 the country. Two other gentlemen hunting in the same region 

 destroyed in one season no fewer than seventy-eight rhinoceroses 

 alone. Sportsmen, however, would not now find an equal num- 

 ber, for as guns are introduced among the tribes all these fine 

 animals melt away like snow in spring. In the more remote 

 districts, where fire-arms have not yet been introduced, with the 

 single exception of the rhinoceros, the game is to be found in 

 numbers much greater than Mr. Cumming ever saw. The tsetse 

 is, however, an insuperable barrier to hunting with horses there, 

 and Europeans can do nothing on foot. The step of the elephant 

 when charging the hunter, though apparently not quick, is so 

 long that the pace equals the speed of a good horse at a canter. 

 A young sportsman, no matter how great among pheasants, foxes, 

 and hounds, would do well to pause before resolving to brave 

 fever for the excitement of risking such a terrific charge ; the 

 scream or trumpeting of this enormous brute when infuriated is 

 more like what the shriek of a French steam-whistle would be to 

 a man standing on the dangerous part of a rail-road than any 

 other earthly sound : a horse unused to it will sometimes stand 



