A MARVELLOUS STORY. 
211 
and being so much obliged. After reaching the 
wagon, he cured and preserved it beautifully, and 
my gratitude knew no bounds ; but eventually, when 
he left it in the charge of a friend of his to take parti¬ 
cular care of for him , I began to feel a little uncom¬ 
fortable and uneasy as to its future destination, and 
said, ‘Do you consider that skin yoursP’ ‘Why, 
what can you possibly have to do with it P You did 
not even shoot' I need hardly say that this happened 
on my first introduction to the colony, before I had 
got initiated; for, according to all the rules of the 
chase, I ought to have had the first shot, when, if I 
had missed, he then might have laid claim to him. 
Hottentots are fond of dealing in the marvellous. 
Kleinboy and Baffeta told me that they were once 
near the Great Lake, but fully half-a-mile from the 
water, and found a crocodile, twelve feet long, wedged 
fast into the fork of a tree, not quite dead, some 
nine feet from the ground. They accounted for it 
by saying the elephant had carried him and put him 
there, that they were constantly in the practice of 
plaguing and biting the legs and trunks of the ele¬ 
phants—when drinking and bathing, they go a long 
way into the lake for that purpose—and this was the 
way the sagacious animal had served him out. If 
the story is true (which I don’t myself doubt), I can 
see no other way of accounting for it. 
I was once witness to the effectual though cruel 
plan the Dutch have of teaching their dogs to face 
hyenas. They catch the hyenas alive in traps built 
