186 
AFRICAN HUNTING. 
on the point of the shoulder and disabling her. She 
champed the branches of the tree in impotent rage 
and fury, and I went up and finished her off. She 
was a fine old lioness, very large and fat. We 
skinned her, and Swartz took the skin to the wagon. 
I took the skull, though, but for my infamous bad 
shot, I should have had the honour of killing her. 
I saw yesterday, for the first time, a harrisbuck, 
or potoquaine, but he was far off, and on the 
side of a most precipitous mountain. Hearing 
our wagons thundering down the dry stony ravine, 
he was taking himself majestically off, out of harm’s 
way. He appeared to me to be of a glossy jet 
black, and I ran hard to get a better look at him, 
but he had disappeared, or rather I got deeper and 
deeper into the kloof, and the bushes, trees, and 
rubbish intercepted my view. 
1(M. — Had an easy victory over an immense old 
giraffe bull. Hot having a measure, I am afraid to 
say what height he stood ; but from his fetlock to 
his knee, and from his knee to the point of the 
shoulder, were both over four feet. His tongue, 
which I slung to my belt above my hips, hung below 
my ankle. I saw him standing alone, and, knowing 
he would take up wind, kept 150 yards below; and, 
after an easy gallop of about a mile, he came directly 
across me, within 15 yards, at a tearing pace. Bryan, 
being on his best behaviour, pulled up short; and I 
gave him a bullet in the stern, about 100 yards off, 
which soon caused him to slacken his pace ; and the 
