associations connected with the past: mankind is in its infancy: but there is nothing in their simple manners to offend. The savage is never vulgar: his armed figure encircled by his dogs; his graceful and free-born motions when in pursuit of game; his frank manner and bold approach, on perceiving the white stranger who is traversing his country,-are all noble and in character and keeping with the surrounding region, -with the distant range of snow-capped mountains,-with the shadowy kloof, the sheltered rivers, and the abrupt cliffs that tower above in strange and fanciful shapes, -with the bare and sun-scorched rocks, in whose crevices patches of rich verdure find nourishment,—with the high natural grass and flowery shrubs through which the rider makes his way, while they exhale sweetness to him, from the very pressure which destroys their beauty :with all that is spirit-stirring and magnificent in the wild and desert scenery,

"Untouch'd as yet by any meaner hand,

Than His who made it."

LETTER IX.

Sources of Interest.-Elephant Hunting.-Portrait of a Hunter.-Account of a Week's Excursion.-Adventures.-An Ambush.-A Night in the Wilderness.-Costume of the Hunters.-Narrow Escape.-A Rhinoceros.-The Buffalo.-More Sport.-Return to our Bivouac.-Anecdotes of Elephants.-Of the Hunter.-Of Skipper.

You tell me that my descriptions of the scenery and customs of this wild country have an interest for you, who pass life in civilized sameness. Almost every country has some sources of amusement and information peculiar to itself, and this remote frontier, in Africa, is by no means without them; and they are much to my taste, for I seek excitement from situations that most would shun, which you, who know me to be no sportsman, will allow, when I tell you that I have just returned from a week's elephant-shooting. My companion and

myself had appointed to meet the elephant-hunter, who promised us certain sport in the dusky hills through which the great Fish River flows,

-a country thickly covered with bush, and given up to the wild animals that infest it.

After wandering half the day amidst its lonely scenery, we heard a distant shot and saw the smoke rise, and shortly afterwards the hunter joined us, a thin, spare, bony man, formed for activity, whose sun-scorched countenance and eye of habitual watchfulness bore that expression so frequently to be traced among poachers. His manner was bold and open, as one who felt that in such situations the petty distinctions of society ceased. His quick grey eye glanced from beneath the broad rim of the boor's hat; his powder-horn hung from a black leathern buckled shoulder-belt, to which his pouch was attached: he was mounted on an active, well-formed, small horse, and followed by nine dogs of every variety of the cur and lurcher, that came limping after him, for they had suffered severely from an attack on a

P

wild hog, a side of which hung at the hunter's saddle. From him we heard that he had neither seen elephants nor any trace of them; and after searching for some hours, and consulting with his two attendant Hottentots, we took up our bivouac on the banks of the Fish River, gave our horses to the servants, unpacked our provisions, spread our beds of sheepskin, and lighted our fires. We did full justice to a dinner of which the flesh of the wild hog formed a principal portion, and my hungry judgment pronounced it superior to any pork I had ever tasted. There were two fires:-round one sat the hunter, a little boy whom he was training to his dangerous trade, my companion, and myself; round the other, the two Hottentot shooters, and our two attendants. Dinner was at last over, and we reclined on our sheepskins, and listened to the adventures of the hunter, to which I must despair of imparting the interest which he gave to them-for you cannot hear them as I heard them, in a wild soli

tude, and in the calm beauty of an African

night. D the shooter was an English settler, and did not conceal that he had been a smuggler among the Kaffers. After the trade was permitted, he followed it at Fort Wiltshire, and lost in the regular traffic what he had gained by the illicit; he not only lost what he possessed, but became involved, and, to recover himself, entered on the wild life of an elephant-hunter. When pursuing his first dangerous trade, his stock of beads, he said, had been frequently seized by the Kaffers, and his life threatened, for they knew well that the life of the smuggler was not protectedthat Gaika had once taken every thing from him, and was about to give him up to the English troops; - "When, you know," observed the Kaffer calmly, "you will be hanged;" and that he was only saved by the intervention of another chief, Duchany, who prevailed on Gaika to let him escape. He gave