ign upon the part of the field-cornet. As yet he knew
little of the country around. He did not know but that it might contain
worse enemies than either hyenas or lions.

While they sat watching the manoeuvres of the quaggas, a movement was
made by one of these creatures more singular than any that had yet been
witnessed.

The animal in question was browsing quietly along, and at length
approached a small clump of bushes that stood out in the open ground.
When close to the copse it was observed to make a sudden spring forward;
and almost at the same instant, a shaggy creature leaped out of the
bushes, and ran off. This last was no other than the ugly "striped"
hyena. Instead of turning upon the quagga and showing fight, as one
might have supposed so strong and fierce a brute would have done, the
hyena uttered a howl of alarm, and ran off as fast as its legs would
carry it.

They did not carry it far. It was evidently making for a larger tract
of bush that grew near; but before it had got half-way across the open
ground, the quagga came up behind, and uttering his shrill "couaag,"
reared forward, and dropped with his fore-hoofs upon the hyena's back.
At the same instant the neck of the carnivorous animal was clutched by
the teeth of the ruminant and held as fast, as if grasped by a vice.

[Illustration: THE QUAGGA AND THE HYENA.]

All looked to see the hyena free itself and run off again. They looked
in vain. It never ran another yard. It never came alive out of the
clutch of those terrible teeth.

The quagga still held his struggling victim with firm hold--trampling it
with his hoofs, and shaking it in his strong jaws, until in a few
minutes the screams of the hyena ceased, and his mangled carcass lay
motionless upon the plain!

One would think that this incident might have been enough to warn our
hunters to be cautious in their dealings with the quagga. Such a sharp
biter would be no pleasant horse to "bit and bridle."

But all knew the antipathy that exists between the wild horse and the
hyena; and that the quagga, though roused to fury at the sight of one of
these animals, is very different in its behaviour towards man. So
strong, in fact, is this antipathy, and so complete is the mastery of
the ruminant over the carnivorous animal, that the frontier farmers
often take advantage of these peculiar facts, and keep the hyenas from
their cattle by bringing up with the herd a number of quaggas, who act
as its gua