A great deal has been said about the prowess of Nimrod, in connexion with the chase, from the days of him of Babylon to those of the late Mr. Apperley of Shropshire; but we question whether, amongst all the sporting characters mentioned in ancient or modern story, there ever was so mighty a hunter as the gentleman whose sporting calendar now lies before us.[5] The annals of the chase, so far as we are acquainted with them, supply no such instances of familiar intimacy with Lions, Elephants, Hippopotami, Rhinoceroses, Serpents, Crocodiles, and other furious animals, with which the human species in general is not very forward in cultivating an acquaintance. Footnote 5: A Hunter’s Life in South Africa. By R. Gordon Cumming, Esq., of Altyre. Mr. Cumming had exhausted the Deer forests of his native Scotland; he had sighed for the rolling prairies and rocky mountains of the Far West, and was tied down to military routine as a Mounted Rifleman in the Cape Colony, when he determined to resign his commission into the hands of Government, and himself to the delights of hunting amidst the untrodden plains and forests of Southern Africa. Having provided himself with waggons to travel and live in, with bullocks to draw them, and with a host of attendants; a sufficiency of arms, horses, dogs, and ammunition, he set out from Graham’s-Town, in October 1843. From that period his hunting adventures extended over five years, during which time he penetrated from various points and in various directions from his starting-place in lat. 33 down to lat. 20, and passed through districts upon which no European foot ever before trod; regions where the wildest of wild animals abound—nothing less serving Mr. Cumming’s ardent purpose.