152 
SPOETING. 
Chap. VII. 
enduring all tlie liardsliips 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, receiv¬ 
ing 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 honour of the English name by paying liis 
debts. As the guides of Mr. Gumming 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 wliich 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 Afidcan 
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 himting in the same region 
destroyed in one season no fewer than seventy-eight rhinoceroses 
alone. Sportsmen, however, would not now find an equal 
number, for as gnus 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 rliinoceros, the game is to be found in 
numbers much greater than Mr. Gumming ever saw. The tsetse 
is, however, an insuperable barrier to hunting with horses there, 
and Em’opeans can do nothing on foot. The step of the elephant 
when charging the hmiter, 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 risMng such a terrific charge; the 
scream, or trumpeting, of tliis enormous brute when infuriated is 
more like what the slmek of a French steam-whistle would be to 
a man standing on the dangerous part of a radroad, than any 
otlier eartlily somid: a horse unused to it will sometimes stand 
