April 17, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
609 
have their watering places protected by a fence 
made of stakes which prevents a crocodile from 
entering, and as long as they keep inside the 
fence they are perfectly safe. Here I paid off 
some boys from the caravan who wished to re¬ 
turn home and got others without any difficulty 
and resumed my journey. 
On the trek one day is very much like another 
and unless something unusual occurs, there is 
nothing to relate. I heard of a white man liv¬ 
ing about two days’ journey on and determined 
to stop at his place on my way. I found him 
a Scotchman, who, though very reticent about 
himself, was most hospitable and pleased to see 
me and begged me to remain for a few days, 
which I did. His farm, if I may call it so, was 
a very lovely one, beautifully watered with the 
very best of running water, and his house was 
on a hill, with a large stockade around it, and 
outside this a second zareba made of brush. He 
told me this was absolutely necessary to protect 
his cattle and goats from lions and that he had 
suffered great losses from these and from 
leopards. His rifle was a marvel, and how he 
dared fire it I cannot conceive. The stock was 
tied on with wire and string and it was an old 
fashioned .450 express. He was most anxious 
for me to sell him any spare ammunition that I 
had, but I told him that my ammunition was all 
cordite and that he could not possibly fire it 
in a rifle made for black powder. He declared 
that he could do so and on my departure I pre¬ 
sented him with about 100 rounds, feeling at 
the same time I was doing wrong. Whether 
he ever had an accident or not I never heard. 
He was miles away from anywhere and quite 
alone and told me his idea was to catch game 
and make a large game ranch. He asked me 
as a favor not to shoot anywhere in the 
neighborhood of the farm, as he did not wish 
the game disturbed. There were a good many 
oribi which came close up to the zareba. They 
were some of the finest specimens I saw on my 
whole trip and he certainly showed me the best 
oribi head I had seen. He appeared quite happy 
and said that he never wished to return to civili¬ 
zation, that about every two years he made a 
journey to Buluwayo, and laid in a stock of 
necessaries. I suppose he had his story as most 
of us have and that he preferred his own so¬ 
ciety to that of other whites. His farm was 
well cultivated with large gardens of maize and 
Kaffir corn which he said the natives planted 
on shares. To a certain extent I envied him. 
He had no cares or worries, no people to bother 
him, and among the natives he was a sort of 
king. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit yet, al¬ 
though he begged me to stay longer, after three 
days I had had quite enough of it and moved 
on. 
Until the evening of the second day I kept 
my promise about shooting. Then I came across 
a large bunch of impala, out of which I killed 
two nice bucks. The impala is a most grace¬ 
ful antelope and with one of the prettiest heads 
of all the small African bucks. The way in 
which they jump when alarmed is simply as¬ 
tonishing. In this immediate vicinity there were 
any quantity. 
One day I found the remains of an impala, 
evidently killed by a lion or leopard. I stayed 
at this camp for two days, but saw nothing, 
although lion spoor was fresh at one drinking 
place and we heard them on the succeeding 
night. I have often wondered about hunting 
lions with a really good pack of dogs. The 
American panther cannot be compared to an 
African lion, but I should think if one had a 
sufficient number of dogs and they had pluck 
enough, and not too much, that they ought to 
be able to worry a lion so that he would be 
obliged to stop. There is, or was, an old hun¬ 
ter in Southern Rhodesia who, I was told, had 
some boar hounds that would stop any lion. The 
two men whom I knew personally that hunted 
lions with dogs both came to an untimely end, 
but they rather looked for trouble and failed 
to take the ordinary precautions that any sen¬ 
sible person knows are absolutely necessary 
when hunting dangerous game. One of them 
was the best fellow that ever breathed and it 
was my sad lot to bring him in after he was 
mauled. His pack of hounds consisted of seven 
Kaffir mongrels and with it he had killed five 
lions, but the sixth revenged them. 
I came across a sow wart hog with a litter 
of very young ones. We did our best to catch 
one, but they were too swift for us. They went 
as fast as their mother, and a pig can go for 
a short distance as fast as a horse. It was a 
most ludicrous sight to watch. I have only seen 
one wart hog in captivity and that the D. C. 
in Kalomo owned. He was very savage and 
his pen was built strongly, so that visitors who 
wished to see him should run no risks. 
In another ten days I was approaching civili¬ 
zation, or what I term civilization, a straggling 
v^hite settlement consisting mostly of Dutchmen 
who, not satisfied with the conditions of the 
Transvaal and Orange River Colony after the 
war, were seeking pastures new. Some three 
years later I met some of them on the German 
East African border at Kilimanjaro, at least 
1,000 miles further north. This distance they 
had traveled in their ox wagons with their wives 
and families through an unknown country and 
across practically impassable rivers, going 
I T is not generally known that some of the 
grandest mountain scenery in New England 
is in Southern Vermont. The inhabitants of 
the region being familiar with it all their lives, 
fail to appreciate its beauties, and it is seldom 
visited by outsiders excepting fishermen, who 
usually get only partial views of the country. 
The towns of Sunderland, Stratton, Glaston¬ 
bury, Somerset and Searsburg are located on 
or near the summit of the Green Mountains, 
which here form an almost unbroken range of 
more than twenty miles from north to south, 
and nearly that distance from east to west, high 
and rugged. 
This country is thinly settled by a hardy, 
honest race of small farmers, with a sprinkling 
of lumbermen, hunters and trappers. Among 
them may be found descendants of the sturdy 
followers of Allen and Warner in their resist¬ 
ance to the New York authorities and of Stark 
through dangers of every kind, the most fre¬ 
quent and not least dangerous among them 
being wild animals. Their wagon was their 
home. In it they slept and here their children 
were born or died. The Boers are certainly a 
most marvelous nomadic race and can give the 
rest of the world points in regard to traveling 
in their especial way, by ox wagons. 
While close here I very nearly had my eye 
cut out with a kiboko or rhinoceros hide whip. 
My hands were covered with veldt sores, as is 
often the case after a hard and lengthened trip, 
and were all tied up, as sun is the worst of all 
things for veldt sores. I was sitting in my tent 
when I heard some altercation going on out¬ 
side and found a Dutchman accusing my boy 
of stealing some rawhide ropes. I naturally 
took the part of the boy and the Dutchman de¬ 
parted. I returned to my tent thinking the mat¬ 
ter had ended. However, the Dutchman sud¬ 
denly reappeared again and without a word hit 
me across the face with his kiboko. I yelled to 
him that I was powerless, as my hands were 
sore and I could not protect myself, but he gave 
me another one, hitting me just under the eye. 
Realizing then that it was serious, I closed with 
him and over we went, tent and all. My boy, 
fearing something desperate would happen, ran 
off and called some other Boers to come, which 
they did, and pulled us out from under the tent. 
They took my part and said that the assault 
was entirely unwarranted. They cared for my 
face and my eye was saved, but it was a close 
thing. 
A few more days and I was fit enough to 
travel on to Kalomo and from there to Living¬ 
stone. There I had my trophies carefully boxed 
and I did not see them again till I got them in 
London. They were good. Some sable heads 
were excellent. If not records, they were not 
far from it, and as a whole the collection was 
far above the average. Besides, I had the satis¬ 
fied feeling that follows a successful trip. 
in his fight at the neighboring town of Ben¬ 
nington. 
The forests are mostly of spruce, hemlock, 
maple, birch and beech—not the gnarled and 
stunted trees found on the soil of many other 
parts of New England, but thrifty and vigorous, 
of immense size, towering to a great height. 
Beneath these one may wander for days in the 
full belief that he is the first who has ever 
penetrated the solitude; the man and the ax 
have left no traces in the more remote recesses. 
The numerous streams that come leaping from 
the mountain peaks and hillsides are the hones 
of trout, and frequent small lakes diversify the 
scene. For game, bears and lynx are common. 
In the small tribe are innumerable foxes, rabbits 
and partridges. 
It is in this section of New England that the 
scenes of the following stories are laid. It is 
many years ago that I participated in them. It 
Ca.mp-Fire Ta^-les.—I. 
By FRED L. BALLARD 
