I40 MR. GORDON CUMMING. 



This spot was Mr. Gordon Cumming's furthest station 

 north. Our house at Kolobeng having been quite in the 

 hunting- country, rhinoceros and buffaloes several times 

 rushed past, and I was able to shoot the latter twice from 

 our own door. We were favoured by visits from this 

 famous hunter during each of the five years of his warfare 

 with wild animals. Many English gentlemen following 

 the same pursuits paid their guides and assistants so 

 punctually that in making arrangements for them we had 

 to be careful that four did not go where two only were 

 wanted : they knew so well that an Englishman would 

 pay that they depended implicitly on his word of honour, 

 and not only would they go and hunt for five or six months 

 in the north, 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 greediness, I upheld the honour of the English 

 name by paying his debts. As the guides of Mr. Cumming 

 were furnished through my influence, and usually got 

 some strict charges as to their behaviour before parting, 

 looking upon me in the light of a father, 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, con- 

 sidering the amount of large game then in the country. 

 Two other gentlemen hunting in the same region destroyed 

 in one season no fewer than sevent3^-eight rhinoceroses 

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

 number, 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 rhino- 

 ceros, the game is to be found in numbers much greater 



