short distance into different
parts of the bush, gathering confidence each time.

One morning early, a Hottentot man came to tell me that his master had
sent him to ask if I would like to join a party going out after a
leopard that had destroyed several chickens, and had also breakfasted on
a half-grown pig on the said morning. I was glad of this chance, as I
hoped to see some sport, and immediately shouldering my gun, and
fastening a large clasp-knife in my belt, joined my guide, who led me to
a house on the outskirts of the village of D'Urban, where I found a
party of ten or twelve as rough-looking customers as one could desire to
see: I am sure a leopard would not have had courage even to look at
them. If beards or dirt made African sportsmen, I thought I must be in
a very hot-bed of them.--I soon saw that the party were more of the
style of _sporting-men_ than _sportsmen_; they were liberally imbibing
brandy and water, which they wanted to force upon me to steady my
nerves; an auxiliary I begged to decline, first, on account of the hour
(10 a.m.), and, secondly, because the shaking hands of many present made
me doubt its steadying qualities. We started in two divisions, one
taking the trail into the bush where the pig had been made pork, while
the other entered where the leopard generally came out.

The cover was so very dense and thick that we were obliged to crawl on
all fours, great care being necessary to prevent the triggers or cocks
of the gun from getting set and caught: we were all particularly
requested to be silent; but the hairy men _would_ talk. After creeping
150 yards, we came to some of the bones of the pig, evidently just left
by the leopard: we watched carefully every gloomy part of the
surrounding bush to discover the leopard, but could see nothing.
Suddenly a bird flitted away close to us, and one of the bearded
gentlemen, who had appeared the greatest swaggerer, called for us to
look out, as the leopard was coming. I immediately heard the
click-click of double-barrelled guns coming to full cock, and saw a
gentleman a few yards to my right pointing his gun straight at me; I
shouted to him to mind what he was about, when he coolly told me he was
only getting ready in case the leopard sprung; his shaking hands,
however, were certainly not pleasant masters of a trigger, the slightest
pressure on which would have sent an ounce of lead through me.

I withdrew as soon as possible, as I was convi