Al 
paring to follow up this success, when the wounded animal saved me the trouble. Uttering a shrill, tremulous, warning cry, 
brandishing his bushy tail, tossing his piebald head with a menacing air, and then dropping it low betwixt his fore legs,-— 
thus inverting his bodkins, and bringing them to bear upon the enemy, down he darted with lightning-like velocity — another 
shot finishing the affair, and affording breathing-time to my unfortunate nag, whose sides heaved like blacksmith’s bellows, and 
who was within an ace of being expended in the truly arduous achievement. 
The passion for hunting wild animals, when it has once taken root, is probably one of the most powerful affections of the 
human mind—the manifold difficulties attending the performance, serving only to enhance the pleasurable excitement that it 
affords. During the stirring alternations of hope and despair—of promised success and anticipated disappointment— how did 
my heart riot within its cage—how at one moment did my bosom beat high with nervous expectation, and sink the next 
from dire misgivings of the result, If the humiliation of every wild beast were of easy accomplishment, no longer should we 
revel in all those delicious changes that depress or animate us during a chase like this, and—equally stimulating us to still further 
exertion — constitute the chief charm of venerie. The ground gone over on this occasion could not have been less than five 
miles, and returning whence I had set out by retracing my own spoor, I found that Richardson had meanwhile been engaged 
in the pursuit of a troop of five lions, on his wounding one of which the Hottentots, to a man, had deserted him; nor did 
they return to the waggons until the afternoon, asserting that they had killed two out of the three Rhinoceroses, for which, 
when at leisure to attend to them, we had sought in vain. So completely exhausted was my poor steed, that I was obliged 
to drag him home, carrying the saddle on my own head,—another noble bull Gemsbok trotting across the path as if in derision, 
and escaping with a slight flesh wound. It was nearly dark ere we regained our camp under a solitary thorn-tree a few miles 
below the source of the Molopo—fairly drenched to the skin by one of those startling thunder-showers which visit those arid 
regions. Amidst flashes of the most vivid lightning, the loudest claps of thunder suddenly burst above our heads; and when 
near the waggons, a black cloud which had rapidly formed in the serene blue sky, proceeded forthwith to empty its contents 
for our especial benefit— pouring for five minutes with such violence that the horses, unable to face it, were compelled to turn 
their backs upon the storm, but ceasing as abruptly as it had commenced, so that we passed on at once to parched and dusty 
land, from a tract which had in that short time, become perfectly covered with pools of water. 
Sees a 
