himself. I saw the beast killed, rather than desert the one that could not follow; and they fell dead together. On my observing that, judging from the paths that intersected the country in all directions, they must be very numerous; he said," they were, and indeed are so still. I have, I dare say, myself seen as many as three thousand in a troop, on the banks of the Fish River; but I should think, in the last three years, full that number have been destroyed."

He mentioned one thing, that struck me as very extraordinary,-that those who traversed the country never found the body of an elephant that had died a natural death, though they frequently found those that had fallen by

the hunter's shot.

I was surprised to hear D say, that it was his wish to leave his present life, and to settle quietly in his farm. " Indeed!" I said, "I should have thought that this wild pursuit, and your former dangerous trade, would render a quiet life somewhat sleepy."-" I have a wife now, and shall have children, and have been driven to this by debt and necessity. I have

nearly got over my difficulties, for in twenty months, I and my Hottentots have killed eight hundred elephants; four hundred have fallen by this good gun; and when I am free, I quit it. Scores of times have the elephants charged around me, even within a yard of the bush under which I had crept; and I feel that it was a chance I was not crushed. Once I had fired on a large troop in a deep ravine, one side of which was formed by a steep cliff, which echoed back the sound of the firing, and a hundred elephants, with upraised ears, and loud screams, and tossing trunks, rushed down the narrow pass, and charged the echo, being the opposite side to that in which we had fired, and the one to which we had moved; myself and Hottentots lying in the bush, while they rushed by us. The boldest hunter is killed at last. I have, when pursued by a rhinoceros, sprung down a high bank, not knowing its depth, or whether I might not fall on a rock or stump. No, Sir, it is a life of no common hardship and danger. I have been obliged to eat the veldtschoon (untanned leather shoes) from my feet."

I asked Skipper how many wild beasts he had shot in his life: his list I cannot accurately remember; but there were, I think, two rhinoceroses, one lion-when all his companions fled-I know not how many elephants, tigers, wolves, &c.; but it finished with two Kaffers; for Skipper was not a man of nice distinctions.

The night passed, and in the morning we packed up our baggage, consisting of a pair of saddle-bags; and I bade D― good bye, wishing him sport, and a high price for his ivory. "Well, Skipper, good bye; I think you would smoke, if you were between the tusks of the elephant."-" No, Sir," he replied, without the slightest change of countenance, apparently taking my speech as literal, "for he would smell me."

We separated-the hunter and boy took their guns and started homeward. Skipper and his companion went with the horses, to bring away the tusks of the dead elephants, while my companion and myself returned from whence we came.

LETTER X.

Return to the Cape.-Early recollections.-Love of home.-A gale off the Cape.-Number of books.-Inn.-A character.-Flocks of locusts.-Effects of Kaffer wars.-Portraits of a Dutch Boor and his family.-The School-master. Pictures of heroes.Scriptural learning.-Christina.-Life of a Boor.-Anecdotes.Ludicrous scene.-Visit to Mr. Rex.-District of George.-Hospitable reception.-A dilemma.-Opinions of Le Vaillant.-Whimsical occurrence. A comic scene.-Moravian Institution.-Spurtzheim. -A marriage.-Classical names.-Criterion of beauty.-Reach Cape Flats.-Scenes visited in my tour.

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ONCE again in Cape-Town, and only waiting there for a vessel to take me to England. Home-what a sound to the schoolboy's ears; a thing to dream of during the half-year; to reckon the days on the notched stick, and to cut the notches away, until but a week remains, and then-but a day.

"To drag at each remove a lengthening chain,"

is beautiful in poetry, but scarcely true to nature or experience, (at least, I have not found it so.) How many have I seen pass on their way to India, who, when they left their country and their friends, were resolved that not a day beyond the allotted period should be allowed to elapse without witnessing their return! yet years have passed, and more years will pass, and with each will the wish weaken, until it becomes extinct. No; when the strained eye watches from the deck the dim and doubtful outline of the receding coast or cloudlike mountain, it would appear easier to the boy to part with life than with the warm, home affections that are then throbbing at his heart; and yet, how quickly they change; and mean pursuits of gain or pleasure usurp their place, and shut them out for ever! But why should I yield to such thoughts at such a time; for I can never be so changed as not to feel happiness on meeting you; in visiting the old familiar places; and in again seeing many of whose kindness I have often thought in absence. Now to my journey.