180 
AFRICAN HUNTING. 
he gives of the accident is as follows: — On pulling 
up Luister short to jump off to shoot his giraffe, as 
his body was bent to dismount, Luister reared straight 
up in the air and then plunged and kicked violently, 
finishing by taking a bound to the left. John came 
off and heard the bone of his left fore arm crack like 
a cap. Luckily Swartz and Kleinboy were close at 
hand, and immediately pulled up and set his arm, 
and when I returned he was properly splintered and 
bandaged up, with his arm in a sling, and drinking a 
cup of coffee. Medcalfe made the splints with the 
back of a book and part of the lid of a tea-chest. 
2nd .—Inspanned early and treked far to a vley, 
the horses and dogs winding the water full a mile 
and a half off, and setting off briskly with their heads 
up in the air. Kvelt fell with Swartz, unfortunately 
breaking the stock of the double-barrel he bought 
from me. I had the Kaffirs at work at each 
of my legs to-day, and extracted forty-two thorns. 
I need hardly say I suffer great pain, as my 
hands festered, and ached, and throbbed to such 
a degree that I got no sleep, and I did not lessen the 
pain to-day by applying blue stone. The hack- 
thorns, or vaac um bechi—a most appropriate name 
given them by the Boers, signifying 4 wait a little,’— 
are the most fearful things to get through I ever 
came across. They have low square tops, strong 
and very dense, with short stubby sharp thorns, set 
on both ways, and no garment of any quality can 
stand against them, and the more desperate your 
