Hitherto my experiences of sport at the Cape had been of a somewhat tame description, consisting of coursing and partridge-shooting, such as I had often enjoyed, though on a larger scale, in Old England. But at that time my thoughts were on larger subjects bent, and I gave myself up thoroughly to these. My battery consisted of a Lancaster double-barrelled, oval-bored rifle, of great precision and length of range, but small in calibre; a Rigby twelve-bored fowling-piece; and a double-barrelled Barnett Minie, also twelve-bored. With these I bowled over lots of fur and feather, mostly pea-fowl, stein and bush buck. Sometimes I went in for bigger game; but as there were no lion, elephant, or buffalo within several days’ journey, I was obliged to content myself with trying my ’prentice hand on some stray leopards, whose tracks I had noticed about, as well as those of wild-boar, or rather, as I believe, of farmers’ pigs run wild during the war, and which in very fair numbers ploughed up the wet kloofs and the abandoned gardens around the farms. There were plenty of hyenas and jackals about, but I was tired of trying to get up any excitement about them. They were a set of sneaking marauders, who used to prowl about the camp by night for the sake of the offal and scraps to be found, and who would scamper off on the slightest appearance of danger. My English spaniel, “Dash,” would often bow-wow them almost any distance away. Amongst other traces of game, I had observed the spoor of a leopard, or some other soft-footed member of the feline tribe, around a pool of water at the head of the kloof on which Blakeway’s Farm was situated. It was about two miles off, in a very dank, secluded spot, almost as dark under the big cliffs and heavy foliage as an underground cavern. It was a favourite resort for blue-buck and baboons, whose footprints had stamped and puddled the ground all around. I selected a spot under a boulder of rock that advanced almost to the margin of the pool, where I placed, day after day, as I had seen it done in Algeria, branch after branch of prickly cactus, until I had made quite a porcupine shield, big enough to shelter a man. In the centre of this I dug a small circular hole, for a seat, and ensconced thereon, I one night took my place, awaiting the arrival of my supposed game. The grandeur of the scenery, huge grey rocks, gigantic trees, and an awe-inspiring stillness which weighed upon one’s spirits, made me feel extremely small in my solitary hole. The only life moving amid these gloomy surroundings was a merry singing cloud of mosquitoes, circling round and round above my head. Had I not remembered the enormous bumps their whispering kisses used to raise on my poor face, I should have felt tempted to let some of them in under the muslin I had spread across the bushes overhead, in order to have something to occupy my attention and break the monotony, were it only these denizens of the insect world.