66 
THE NEW AFRICA 
by two white bulls (albinos, probably); but as our trip was of a 
flying nature, much as we regretted it, we could not afford even 
to lose a day in search of peculiar game, but had our sport 
regulated by what we met along the route, and even under these 
limited conditions we managed to amply supply the require¬ 
ments of our bearer troop and ourselves. Each day as we went 
along two to twelve buck were killed; but I can honestly relate 
that we seldom killed more than our wants actually required, 
while to show that we had to be on the qui vive all the time, a 
good-sized buffalo and a quagga only served to feed us overnight 
at one camp. 
While crossing an open flat on the 1st of July we en¬ 
countered a large troop of blue wildebeest—‘ Antelope Gorgon ’ 
—and managed by taking up lucky positions to confuse the 
poor beasts to such an extent that they ran in wild terror from 
one to the other of us, finally circling round Hammar in the 
middle of the flat, with their ferocious looking heads lowered 
and their tails in the air, until he, having exhausted all his 
ammunition, drove them off by his frantic shouts to us to 
bring him more cartridges. One wildebeest got away with 
its front leg broken just above the hoof. It ran on the stump 
of the protruding bone with as much ease as if it were well, 
and all our efforts to overtake it and to put the poor brute out 
of its misery were of no avail, so we had to let it go. Amongst 
us we made a considerable bag, including a wild pig of the wart 
hog species, on whose finer flesh the superior members of the 
expedition regaled themselves right royally, whilst the natives 
went in for wildebeest steaks and marrow-bones, etc. Wart hog, 
and hippo flesh cut from the flank, mark it, are the hunter’s 
special delicacies, while hippo foot boiled for twenty-four hours 
is the choicest morsel of the South African cuisine, although 
when first viewed in the form of an edible it certainly has any¬ 
thing but a reassuring appearance. My first introduction to this 
delicacy, I must confess, inclined me more to take a hasty 
departure than to tackle it with the iron spoon my companion 
graciously placed in my unwilling hands for that purpose. 
