ses after wounded buck around the country
near this village, or town as the Natalians would like it called. On
one occasion, by keeping the hills, I saw my dog follow and pull down
very neatly a wounded reh-bok. This dog would occasionally point, but,
having a good dash of the foxhound in him, he made a useful
servant-of-all-work.

If I shot a large reitbok, and could not obtain assistance from Kaffirs
to convey him home, or found him too heavy to lift on to my pony, I used
to take the two haunches, and pass the girths through a slit cut between
the back sinews of each leg and the bone, and thus mount them astride
behind the saddle, leaving the remainder of the venison either to be
sent for afterwards, or as an offering to the jackals, etc.

I was walking one day about the kloofs near this town, when I heard a
noise like running water; I listened attentively, and was convinced I
heard its ripple, although the ground was apparently unbroken.
Approaching carefully through the grass, I came suddenly to the mouth of
a naturally-formed pit about forty feet deep, with a stream running
through it at the bottom; the aperture was only about eight feet wide,
and quite concealed by long grass; but below, it opened out
considerably. This was a nice sort of place to fall into when galloping
after a buck, or making a short cut at night. There is no one here to
stick up a post with "dangerous" on it, or to hang a lantern near a hole
of this description at night. In twelve hours, were any accident to
happen, one's very bones would be picked and ground to powder by the
hyaenas, vultures, jackals, etc. There are many of these holes in
Africa, although some are not quite so bad as the one I have described;
they are still quite dangerous enough, and serve in a gallop to keep up
the excitement, as well as an "in and out" or a "stiff rail," in an
English fox-hunt.

I witnessed a most amusing scene on the hills, about eight miles from
Pietermaritzburg.

As I was sitting down one day to allow my horse his rest and feed, I
noticed a red-coated gentleman riding along in the valley below, and
soon saw that he was a non-commissioned officer of the regiment
quartered at the time at Natal; he had a gun, and was evidently out
taking his pleasure, on leave for a day's sport. He drew all the kloofs
and grass that I had tested half an hour before, unconsciously passing
over my plainly written horse's footmarks, with a laudable perseverance
t