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Three days afterwards the writer's state of health was no better:

“On the 18th I felt extremely weak and nervous from the fever and the quantity of blood which I had lost, insomuch that I started at my own shadow, and several times sprang to one side when the leaves rustled in the bushes. I walked along the bank of the river with my gun loaded with small shot, intending to shoot a partridge for my breakfast. Presently I came upon the fresh dung of bull elephants, and at the same moment my people at the waggons saw two old bulls within 200 yards of them; and the wind being favourable they walked unsuspiciously. After a very short chase I succeeded in killing

both

In Africa, too, horses fall upon the top of the rider and hurt him as much as the horse at Astley's hurts Mr. Widdicomb, when, at the word of command, the trained Arab steed quietly lets himself down and dies for a feed of corn in the arena. Guns burst in the African hunter's hand and lead to no unsatisfactory results; disease visits him only to strengthen, and suffering comes really to add to the physical and moral enjoyment,

External nature keeps up the African standard. African "peals of thunder are the most appalling, the most fearful" Mr. Cumming ever heard; "the forked lightnings" is to match; "the terrific hailstorms" are "such as I had never before witnessed:" the size of the stones rendering the boasted "large as an egg" of our oldest rural inhabitant simply ridiculous. We have rained ladybirds and frogs in Kent and Surrey before now, but the first flight of locusts beheld by our hunter makes us blush for the national vermin.

"On they came like a snowstorm, flying slow and steady, about a hundred yards from the ground. I stood looking at them until the air was darkened with their masses, while the plain on which we stood became densely covered with them. Far as my eye could reach-east, west, north, and south-they stretched in one unbroken cloud, and more than an hour elapsed before their devastating legions had swept by." On the earth, or in the air-birds, beasts, or insects-it is all the same. "The most extraordinary and striking

scene as connected with beasts of the chase" that Mr. Cumming had ever beheld, was a herd of springboks covering miles of ground. "To endeavour to form any idea of the amount of antelopes which he that day beheld were vain; but he has, nevertheless, no hesitation in stating that some hundreds of thousands of springboks were that morning within the compass of his vision."

It was on the 23d of October, 1843, that Mr. Cumming quitted Grahamstown on his first sporting tour. Instead of a dogcart he drove a waggon drawn by many oxen; his ordnance consisted of three doublebarrelled rifles by Purday, William More, and Dickson, of Edinburgh; three stout double-barrelled guns for rough work; much lead; many bullet moulds, powder flasks, and shooting belts; hundreds of pounds of gunpowder; thousands of gun flints, and tens of thousands of percussion caps. The waggon was laden with baggage, provisions, and general stores; the saddlery was made up of two English hunting saddles, common saddles for servants, and one pack saddle to convey venison to camp. Of horses at starting the hunter had

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but two; of servants and attendants but four; and of cash in hand exactly 2007. Equipped as he was, Mr. Cumming "considered himself prepared to undertake a journey of at least 12 months among Boers or Bushmans, independent of either."

As Mr. Cumming receded from the Cape his sport became more exciting and his danger greater. Proceeding northward from the abode of civilization through the haunts of semi-barbarous tribes, he worked his way up to the unvisited and dreaded domains of the fraternity whose representatives in England are contemplated with greatest advantage and pleasure through iron bars and in trebly-locked dens. Beginning with harmless and timid deer, he closes his marvellous career with foot to foot conflicts with the wildest and bloodiest of beasts. Van Amburgh was a poor apprentice compared with our hero. The American drew the teeth of innocent cubs and lashed them into

fear of man. The Briton presented himself alone in the primeval forest as champion of human kind, and dared any ten of its horrid inhabitants to contest the belt with him. What battles he fought we tremble to think of. What victories he won the native rulers in those distant parts will never cease to remember. We trust they will remember them with gratitude and love. Whatever slaughter may have been committed in their ranks, none was inflicted in vengeance. Isaac Walton himself never fondled a worm or gazed upon the hysteric breathings of a gasping fish with half the tenderness felt by Gordon Cumming as often as he raised his faithful "Purday" and unerring "Dickson of Edinburgh." "On the 23d," we find it written in his diary,

"I stood up in my hole at dawn of day. After I had proceeded a short distance, I perceived the head of an old bull looking at me over a small rise on the bushy plain. The head disappeared. On gaining the rise I again saw the handsome head, with its strangely hooked, fair set horns, gazing at me from the long grass some hundred yards in advance. He had lain down. I held as though I had intended to go past him; but before I neared him he sprang to his feet, and endeavoured to make off from me." The heart of the hunter was pierced. Hear how he proceeds! "Poor old bull! I at once perceived that it was all over with him." Yes, there was little doubt of it. "I walked up to within 80 yards of him, and sent a bullet through his heart." Another case of bull occurs. Gazing one morning from his hole, the anxious hunter perceives a fine brindled bull gnoo dashing into the waters of a fountain within 40 yards of him, followed by four tearing, fiercelooking wild dogs. "All the four had their heads and shoulders covered with blood, and looked savage in the extreme; their eyes glistened with ferocious glee. My anxiety," Mr. Cumming goes on, "to possess this fine old bull, and also a specimen of the wild dog, prevented my waiting to see more of the fun." Much against the promptings of his nature, for "he could not help. feeling very reluctant to fire at the jolly hounds," the sportsman fired at the gnoo and at the largest hound right and left. His aim was good in all respects—— too good for the distressed and mourning hunter. to the hounds, he "could not divest himself of the idea that they deserved a better recompense for the masterly manner in which they had pursued their desperate

As

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game;" and for the unhappy gnoo-but here are Mr. Cumming's admirable reflections on his end at full :

"Poor old bull! I could not help commiserating his fate. It is melancholy to reflect that in accordance with the laws of nature such scenes of pain must ever be occurring; one species, whether inhabiting earth, air, or ocean, being produced to become the prey of another. At night I watched the water with fairish moonlight, and shot a large spotted hyena."

We listen to a martyr philosopher!

We cannot drag ourselves away from the constantly recurring instances of Mr. Cumming's morbid yet most becoming sensibility. Chasing a herd of giraffes he contrives to turn the finest cow out of the herd. Note the animated and considerate pursuit :

"Finding herself driven from her comrades and hotly pursued, she increased her pace, and cantered along with tremendous strides. In a few minutes I was riding within five yards of her stern, and, firing at the gallop, I sent a bullet into her back. Increasing my pace, I next rode alongside, and placing the muzzle of my rifle within a few feet of her, I fired my second shot behind the shoulder. Dismounting, I hastily loaded both barrels, putting in double charges of powder. In a short time I brought her to a stand in the dry bed of a watercourse, where I fired at fifteen yards, aiming where I thought the heart lay, upon which she again made off. Having loaded I followed. Once more I brought her to a stand, and dismounted from my horse."

"The reader will conclude that when the giraffe and Mr. Cumming are face to face, and there is no escape for the beautiful runaway, that the hunter's first thought and act tend to destruction. Not in the least. His