24 
AFRICAN HUNTING. 
or sent out to me. I have sometimes sold forty or 
more in one day, and had upwards of 600 on the 
place at one time, averaging, anywhere in those days 
before the lung sickness, from 10s. to 2 l. a head, for 
which the Kaffirs in Natal always paid cash. 
It was a horrid weary, solitary, monotonous life ; 
not often could I prevail upon anyone to come 
and stay with me, certainly not unless driven to 
it, as was not unfrequently the case, by having no 
other home and no money -— when they would pay 
me a visit till something better turned up. Cer¬ 
tainly I had no great inducement to offer to them to 
remain: lean fowls, salt beef and rice, and heavy, 
ill-baked bread, was our fare, varied occasionally by 
bucks, partridges, and bustards; tea and coffee our 
only beverage. I must not, however, omit oceans 
of milk, most of which the Kaffirs and dogs ran 
through, and I won’t say but that it might have been 
possible to have been very comfortable; all I can 
say is, that the experience I had of it gave me such 
a wholesome dread of the like ever again occurring, 
that I took to the wandering gypsy-life I have ever 
since led. I was never without two or three horses 
and a host of dogs, and, though they assisted very 
materially, together with my rifle and shot guns, 
to get through the days, yet the long evenings, the 
everlasting roar made by my Kaffirs, frequently 
continuing half the night, rats squeaking, gnaw¬ 
ing, and scraping in every room, and almost 
everything that I brought out being long since 
