70 
foam churned round his chaps, and the earth flew in showers from his heels. Missiles and assagais poured in upon the victim 
from every side, and not less than twenty shots had struck him ere he was totally subdued Full of strength and fury — his 
nose lowered betwixt his fore legs, and his tail brandishing in the air, twice did the maddened and baited animal rush gallantly 
to the charge—receiving, during the last, a brace of balls in his broad chest, which closed an exhibition that could not fail to 
call to mind the barbarous though soul-stirring spectacles of the Circus, and of the Moors and Spaniards of olden time. 
From the summit of a hill which commanded an extensive prospect over a straggling forest, I shortly afterwards des- 
cried, through a telescope, a large herd, to which this champion belonged, quietly chewing the cud beneath an umbrageous tree. 
Creeping close upon them from leeward, and resting the rifle against a forked tree, I dropped a bull with a single ball behind 
his elbow. The confused echo reverberating amid the mountains, caused the survivors, about fifty in number, to dash from 
their concealment, panic-stricken, and in ignorance whence the sound proceeded; and everything yielding before their giant 
strength, I narrowly escaped being trampled under foot in their tumultuous course. Moving ground in the afternoon to the 
eastward, we stopped to take up the head of the bull first vanquished, a trophy which the brawny arm of Andries could with 
difficulty lift upon the ¢rap of the waggon.' Myriads of vultures, and the dense clouds of smoke which arose from the fires of 
the savages, directed us to the scene of the humiliation of this noblest of the herd. It was the fifth day of November, and in 
commemoration I presume, of the exploits of Guy Fawkes, they had kindled a bon-fire, which bid fair to destroy all the grass 
in the country — the crackling flames, fanned by the wind, already beginning to ascend the mountain side. Nothing can be con- 
ceived more horribly disgusting than the appearance presented by the savages, who, crammed to the throat, and liberally besmeared 
with blood, grease, and filth from the entrails, sat nodding torpidly around the residue of the carcase, sucking marrow from the 
bones — their lean and famished curs regaling themselves meanwhile upon the garbage, Every bough was bending under collops 
of flesh, and every man had turned beef-butcher—numerous swollen vultures still eyeing the sylvan shambles from the adjacent 
trees, whilst others, yet ungorged, were inhaling with keen nostrils the odours that arose. 
Proceeding betimes the next morning into the hills, again to beat up the quarters of the fugitives, we entered a deep 
wooded defile, which, having been spared by the conflagration, was literally crammed with game that had retired before the 
flames. The scorched and blackened sides of the lofty mountains —in many parts thickly wooded— were scattered over with 
huge masses of pointed rock, frowning in “ craggy nakedness sublime,” and completing all that can be conceived spirit-stirring 
or magnificent in wild and desert scenery. A Rhinoceros was presently laid low; and ere we had reloaded our rifles, a noble 
herd of nearly one hundred and fifty Buffaloes shewed itself on a slope overhanging a sedgy stream beneath us. Having crept, 
under the cover of a grey cliff, to within five and twenty yards of them, we pinked off two bulls before the alarm was spread. 
Crushing through the forest and overturning decayed trees in their route, they swept in fearful confusion along the brow of the 
opposite hill, squeezed together in a compact phalanx — blindly following the leader — whisking their tasselled tails aloft—and © 
raising an incredible cloud of dust to mark their progress. We quickly mounted our horses; and after sticking and floundering 
some minutes in the treacherous mud of the rush-grown rivulet, gained the opposite bank. Pouring in a broadside, we there 
brought two more to bay, which fell after several charges, to rise up no more—the heavy carcase of one, that for some time 
had balanced itself with outstretched legs on the very verge of the precipice, rolling at last like an avalanche over the bank, 
preceded by a huge fragment of earth that its weight had brought away, with which it splashed, ere life had become extinct, 
into a deep pool at the bottom. 
, RS re aS 
Fleaél of Buffalo as preserved by Cape LLOPV Ei. 
uf th, ~ 
