was now on every side, as I pressed the great bull
before me. Oh for an open plain ! I was helpless to
attack, and it required the greatest attention to keep
up the pace through the thick mimosas without dashing
against their stems and branches. The jungle became
thicker, and although I was in the middle of the herd
and within -ten yards of several giraffes, I could do
nothing. A mass of thick and tangled thorns now received
them, and closed over the hardly contested race
«—I was beaten.
Never - mind, it was a good hunt—first-rate—but
where was my camp ? I t was nearly dark, and I could
just distinguish the pass in the distance’ by which we
had descended the mountain; thus I knew the. direction,
but I had ridden about three miles, and it would be
•dark before I could return. However, I followed the
heel tracks of the herd of giraffes. Eicharn Was nowhere.
Although I had lost the race, and was disappointed,
I now consoled myself that it was all for the
best; had I killed a giraffe at that hour and distance
from camp, what good would it have been? I was
quite alone, thus who could have found it during
the night ? and before morning it would have been
devoured by lions and. hyenas;-—inoffensive and
^beautiful creatures, what, a sin it appeared to destroy
them. uselessly! With these consoling an d . practical
reflections I continued my way, until a branch of
hooked thorn fixing in my nose disturbed the train of
ideas arid persuaded me that it was very dark, and that
■I had lost my way, as I could no longer distinguish
either the tracks of the giraffes or the position of the
mountains. Accordingly F fired, my rifle as a signal,
and soon after I heard a distant rèport in reply, and
the blaze of a fire shot up suddenly in the distance on
the side of the mountain. With the help of this beacon
I reached the spot where our people were bivouacked ;
they had lighted the beacon on a rock about fifty feet
above the level, as although some twenty or thirty fires
were blazing, they had been obscured by the intervening
jungle. I found both my wife and my men in an
argumentative state as to the propriety of my remaining
alone so late in the jungle ; however, I also found
dinner ready ; the angareps (stretcher bedsteads)
arranged by a most comfortable blazing fire, and a
'glance at the star-lit heavens assured me of a fine
night—what more can man wish for ?—wife, welcome,
food, fire, and fine weather?
c The bivouac in thé wilderness has many charms;
-there is a complete independence—the sentries are
posted, the animals picketed and fed, and the fires
arranged in a complete circle around the entire party—
men, animals, .and luggage all within the fiery ring ;