AFRICAN HUNTING. 
436 
two whom no amount of flagellation would induce 
to trek. I got also about 45 lbs. of ivory, but it 
was very dear, and I plainly perceive that there is 
no more good to be done. We have had a heavy 
thunder-storm, and I fully expect to get a little rain¬ 
water ahead, for after leaving Lopepe, a day and a 
half from this, we get no more to Kaporig, three 
hard days, with a good deal of night work added ; 
but I do most of my treking at nights, whenever the 
moon is near the full. 
I heard of a dreadful accident which happened to 
three Englishmen on the velt this year : three wagons 
and their contents blown all to rags, from the explo¬ 
sion of 1,600 lbs. of powder; seven horses killed, one 
Hottentot and one Englishman. 
Four Maccalacas Kaffirs joined me here to go to 
Natal, so that I am now quite independent of any 
Natal Kaffirs. 
I have just potted five ducks, the whole batch, in a 
most disgraceful manner. It was too great a windfall 
in these times to give them a ghost of a chance, and 
I got well under the wind, crawled in upon them on 
all fours like a snake in the grass twice successively, 
and bagged all but one on the water, when I might 
have taken them fairly on the wing, right and left. 
I now contemplate them with great satisfaction, as I 
have been living villanously since the death of my 
nags, and—what makes it, if possible, still more 
aggravating—we yesterday saw a troop of giraffes 
from the wagon, and made a vain effort to stalk in 
