of the animal he would fain lay low.  Should they take fright and be off, we found to gallop after them was not much use, owing to the roughness of the veldt and the smallness of the ponies.  Occasionally we had to pursue a wounded animal, and one day we had an exciting chase after a wildebeeste, the most difficult of all bucks to kill, as their vitality, unless absolutely shot through the heart, is marvellous.  When we at last overtook and finished off the poor creature, we had out-distanced all our “boys,” and it became necessary for my fellow-sportsman to ride off and look for them (as the meat had to be cut up and carried into camp), and for me to remain behind to keep the aas-vogels from devouring the carcass.  These huge birds and useful scavengers, repulsive as they are to look at, always appear from space whenever a buck is dead, and five minutes suffices for a party of them to be busily employed, while a quarter of an hour later nothing is left but the bones.  Therefore I was left alone with the dead wildebeeste and with the circling aas-vogels for upwards of two hours, and I realized, as I had never done before, the intense loneliness of the veldt, and something of what the horror must be of being lost on it.  Even residents have to dread this danger.

At that season the veldt boasted of few flowers, but birds were plentiful, especially the large ones I have mentioned as forming a valuable addition to the daily menu, and flocks of guinea-fowl, which run along the ground making a peculiar chuckling noise, rarely flying, but very quick at disappearing in the long grass.  The quaint secretary-bird was often to be seen stalking majestically along, solitary and grotesque, with its high marching action.  Then the honey-birds must not be forgotten.  They give voice to their peculiar note as soon as they see a human being, whom they seem to implore to follow them; and if they succeed in attracting attention, they fly from tree to tree reiterating their call, till they lead the man whose assistance they have sought to the spot where the honey is hidden, but which they cannot reach unaided.  As a rule, it is the natives who take the trouble to obey their call and turn it to account.

The weeks slipped by all too quickly, and it was soon time to bid farewell to Kalomo and its game-haunted flats, over which the iron horse now winds its prosaic course on its way to the dim, mysterious North, bringing noise and bustle in its train.  In consequence the hunter and the animal-lover have to travel farther on, but there will always be room for all on that vast continent.