All animals, however, like to take their prey by surprise, if they can, and of this I have myself seen an interesting instance in South Africa, where I lived for nearly three years. I was once riding along the waggon-road—a sandy trail winding amidst thick thorn-bush—somewhere in Bechuanaland, when all at once there jumped out, upon either side, a pair of Cape hunting-dogs in act to spring. They were bending, indeed, and all elastic, on the very point of making the leap, when, taking in the situation both at the same time, they each stood a little up on their hind legs, and with a curious look of having made an awkward mistake, they turned and disappeared into the bush again, the whole in silence—they did not utter one sound. No doubt the dogs had heard the beat of the horse’s hoofs along the road, and thinking it was wild game, had hidden, one on each side, prepared to leap together, as it passed, and pull it down. From the total change of their whole demeanour, and their expression—very like a dog’s when it has made some foolish mistake—I feel quite sure that they had not expected a man to be mixed up in the affair, nor is any instance of their attacking one, even when in numbers, on record, so far as I know. It seems evident, therefore, that they could not have seen me before, as I came riding along, since one glimpse would have shown them that a man was on the horse. But now a puzzle arises. It is not usual for game to come trotting along the waggon-road, nor does the Cape hunting-dog ever attack the oxen or horses of white men in the interior—at least I have not heard of its doing so. Why, then, did these two take up their position on either side of the path as though to wait till something passed along it, a thing which would only happen at very long intervals, and then would be more likely to be a mounted man, or a waggon, or oxen, than anything else? Unless some antelopes are accustomed to use the waggon-roads in South Africa, which I have never heard of their doing, judgment here, on the part of the two dogs, must have been at fault. For this reason, though nothing seemed clearer than that this had been their plan at the time, I do not now think that it was. I believe they were governed entirely by their sense of hearing, which was either so acute as to bring them both to just the right place, and at just the right time for the joint attack, or else that they judged, by the regularity of the hoof-beats and the direction in which they were proceeding, that the animal, whatever it was, was coming along the road. The last, I think, is the most likely, and this, again, would show that one of the wild indigenous animals of South Africa has, by this time, learnt the use and meaning of the waggon-roads that cross the country.