some time. This was the second trick of the kind that he
had played me; on the former occasion, a friend, whose horse had behaved
better, accompanied me, and we shared the saddle, turn and turn about,
for the four miles that constituted the journey home. On this evening I
had to trudge it alone, and what was worse, without my gun; for, having
merely gone out to take tea, I had left my usual gun at home. I
borrowed an assagy from the Kaffirs and trotted off. The road for great
part of the way was lined with bush. A river about three feet deep had
to be crossed, and then the flat sands of the Congella, famous for the
battle between the Boers and the English troops.

I went on with caution, listening occasionally, as the elephants were
near the edge of the bush I had passed in the afternoon, their feeding
being clearly heard from the smashing of the large branches. It was not
advisable to rub shoulders with these gentlemen unarmed, and in the
night, if it could be avoided.

I had passed the little river Umbilo about two hundred yards, when, upon
suddenly stopping to listen, I heard something behind me; so dropping to
the ground, I placed my head low, and made out the shambling figure of a
cowardly hyaena in relief against the sky. I flung a stone at him and
he shuffled away. Soon after I heard him behind me again, and he
followed at a respectable distance until I reached the village of
D'Urban. These brutes, although possessing a strength of jaw capable of
grinding an ox's leg-bone to powder, are still such curs as to fly
before a dog; and on one occasion, near Pietermaritzburg, four of them
were chased for a couple of miles by my old dog, and made such good use
of their legs that I could not get near enough for a shot.

During two or three evenings we had great fun near the town of
Pietermaritzburg in blocking out porcupines. I nearly ran over one on
horseback one day, and narrowly escaped getting his quills in my horse's
legs. They spread their quills wide, and run backwards very fast, thus
presenting a _chevaux-de-frise_ anything but agreeable. This one dodged
about round me, now running through the grass quite fast, then stopping
and backing, so that I could with difficulty keep my usually
well-behaved shooting-pony from actually turning tail, and in
consequence fired both bullets without any satisfactory result. In a
few minutes he came to his hole, a place big enough for a man to live in
near the entr