360 
AFRICAN HUNTING. 
unmitigated scoundrel and best mimic I ever knew, 
volunteered to take two liorses across. He was dressed 
in leather, and mounted without divesting himself of 
anything ; the mare he was riding swam very fast and 
outpaced the other; in pulling him along, Claas 
checked the mare in the middle of the river, and she 
fell backwards over him, and he sank. The spectators 
on both sides were very much alarmed, and began 
to make all sorts of surmises at his not appearing 
again, amongst others, that he must have received 
a severe kick on his head ; when at length, full 
forty yards below in the middle of the river, that imp 
of darkness just showed his black head like a dog- 
otter, took off a kind of skull cap and waved it a time 
or two as a signal of distress, and then went down 
again, and kept on this game, coming to the surface 
sometimes with a struggle and a gurgle, and throw¬ 
ing his arms wildly about as if he was drowning, as 
far as the bend of the river, full 400 yards below 
where he first landed. I never saw so finished an 
actor in my life, or such a water-dog, and he was 
equally good at everything else. 
He and his mate David were a pretty pair. I was 
once going to the Hantani district, to buy horses, 
and took them to help me drive them home. On 
reaching Bloemfontein, David commenced by getting 
married ; I did not see his bride, and he did not 
leave me owing to this, as he said he could come 
some other time and take her down. 
I bought a lot of horses about forty miles farther 
