In a few minutes the giraffes were slowly advancing within two hundred yards, stretching their graceful necks, and gazing in wonder at the unwonted wagons. Grasping my rifle, I now mounted Colesberg, and rode slowly toward them. They continued gazing at the wagons until I was within one hundred yards of them, when, whisking their long tails over their rumps, they made off at an easy canter. As I pressed upon them they increased their pace; but Colesberg had much the speed of them, and before we had proceeded half a mile I was riding by the shoulder of the dark chestnut old bull, whose head towered above the rest. Letting fly at the gallop, I wounded him behind the shoulder; soon after which I broke him from the herd, and presently going ahead of him, he came to a stand. I then gave him a second bullet, somewhere near the first. These two shots had taken effect, and he was now in my power, but I would not lay him low so far from camp; so having waited until he had regained his breath I drove him half way back toward the wagons. Here he became obstreperous; so loading one barrel, and pointing my rifle toward the clouds, I shot him in the throat, when, rearing high, he fell backward and expired. This was a magnificent specimen of the giraffe, measuring upwards of eighteen feet in height. I stood for nearly half an hour engrossed in the contemplation of his extreme beauty and gigantic proportions; and if there had been no elephants, I could have exclaimed, like Duke Alexander of Gordon, when he killed the famous old stag with seventeen tine, "Now I can die happy." But I longed for an encounter with the noble elephants, and I thought little more of the giraffe than if I had killed a gemsbok or an eland. There are various modes of capturing giraffes. The Americans, who seek them for their menageries, have the Mexican lasso, a long cord which is thrown over the animal's head; and by casting him to the ground and surrounding him by a large force of hunters, he is then captured without difficulty.