Notes on South African Htmting. 71 
Natives’ imperturbality—Our victuals. 
It is curious how small one feels when he is 
trying to make himself understood to a native. 
The natural thing to think* would be that the 
native would feel equally foolish, with a little 
more added on account of his resemblance to a 
monkey. But this is not so. Natives come 
and deliberately laugh at one for not under¬ 
standing their jaw-breaking lingo ; somehow 
one never gibes a native for not understanding 
English. It is true that a white man has a 
great pull in making a native quick of compre¬ 
hension ; but that is by means of the purely 
artificial aid of his bootmaker. One never jeers 
a native somehow. 
The next day I determined to give Ayton and 
the boys an easy day, while I went forth to try 
and shoot a few buck. I need hardly say that, 
as we wanted meat, my hunt was unsuccessful. 
We had now no meat at all, except some very 
old giraffe biltong. This we boiled, and after¬ 
wards made the little meal we had into cakes 
with the soup of the biltong. Upon the cakes 
we used to spread about half an inch thickness 
of giraffe fat (which was going bad) and then 
eat them, and like them. We also got a few 
