mid air-dry and sun-baked vleys, or pans covered with a crystallized efflorescence, constantly delude the thirsty traveller with the prospect of water-and more than once I have ridden towards a couple of springboks, magnified a hundred-fold, which I had mistaken for the white tilts of my waggon.' Belzoni gives a most interesting account of the mirage in the Narrative of his operations and researches in Egypt;" and Moffatt, in his "Missionary Labours," has a striking passage on the subject. He speaks of the delusive mirage, as "tantalizing his feelings with exhibitions of the loveliest pictures of lakes and pools studded with lovely islets, and towering trees moving in the breeze on their banks. In some might be seen the bustle of a mercantile harbour, with jetties, coves, and moving rafts and oars; in others, lakes as lovely as if they had just come from the hand of the Divine artist, a transcript of Eden's sweetest views; but all the result of highly rarefied air, or the reflected heat of the sun's rays on the sultry plain.'

Ant-hills averaging from two to three feet high enable the hunter to gtalk a blesbok on the open plain. This antelope, he tells us, is one of the finest in the world, and is allowed to be the swiftest buck in Africa "I was surprised and delighted with the exquisite manner in which his beautiful colours are blended together. Nothing can exceed the beauty of this animal. Like most other African antelopes his skin emitted a most delicious and powerful perfume of flowers and sweet smelling herbs, A secretion issues from between his hoofs, which has likewise a pleasing perfume.'

The wild hounds again make their appearance, and on this occasion the hunter's danger seems to be imminent; but the cool, steady, selfpossession, which he evinces on all occasions, does not now forsake him; he gets a fright, however, which to men of ordinary nerves was suffi cient to turn their heads grey in a night. I had not slept long," he says, "when my light dreams were influenced by strange sounds. I dreamt that lions were rushing about in quest of me, and, the sounds increasing, I awoke with a sudden start, uttering a loud shriek. I could not for several moments remember in what part of the world I was, or anything connected with my present position. I heard the rushing of light feet as of a pack of wolves close on every side of me, accompanied by the most unearthly sounds. On raising my head, to my utter horror, I saw on every side nothing but savage wild dogs, chattering and growling-on my right and on my left, and within a few paces of me, stood two lines of these ferocious looking animals, cocking their ears and stretching their necks to have a look at me; while two large troops, in which there were at least forty of them, kept dashing backwards and forwards across my wind, within a few yards of me, chattering and growling with the most extraordinary volubility. Another troop of wild dogs were fighting over the wildebeest I had shot, which they had begun to devour. On beholding them I expected no other fate than to be instantly torn to pieces and consumed. I felt my blood curdling along my cheeks, and my hair bristling on my head. However, I had presence of mind to consider that the human voice and a determined bearing might overawe them; and accordingly, springing to my feet, I stepped on to the little ledge surrounding the hole, where, drawing my self up to my full height, I waved my large blanket with both hands, at the same time addressing my savage assembly in a loud and solemu

manner. This had the desired effect-the wild dogs removed to a more respectful distance, barking at me something like collies. Upon this I snatched up my rifle and commenced loading, and before this was accomplished the whole pack had passed away and did not return." How Mr. Gordon Cumming could have consigned himself to the folds of his blanket without loading his rifle to be in readiness for any emergency, seems a blunder incompatible with the wary character of the wild hunter: his want of caution scarcely entitled him to escape. With one eye open, as the Bristol man is said to slumber, and with both barrels cocked, he would scarcely have been too secure from the dangers which surrounded him. He does not appear to have studied Robinson Crusoe's tactics with sufficient effect.

The roar of the lion, like deep-toned thunder, next attracts the hunter's car, and he proceeds to give a most interesting description of the monarch's habits, in which Buffon himself does not equal him. But Buffon who, according to the showman, is liable to err, never consorted with his majesty on the familiar terms with which our author did, meeting him by night and by day, confronting him fearlessly face and face, and when necessary bearding him in his very den. One bold sketch of the noble beast in his native wilds is worth a thousand highly wrought pictures of the same animal, half-fed, heart-broken, and erammed into the iron cage of a menagerie.

It may fairly be said of the gallant captain, that his ear is not hung to courtly strains, or he would not find that deep pleasure, which he evidently does feel, in a concert of lions. "Lions," he says, "like our Scottish stags at the rutting season, roar loudest in cold, frosty nights; bat on no occasions are their voices to be heard in such perfection, or so intensely powerful, as when two or three strange troops of lions approach a fountain to drink at the same time. When this occurs every member of each troop sounds a bold roar of defiance at the opposite parties; and when one roars, all roar together, and each seems to vie with his comrades in the intensity and power of his voice. The power and grandeur of these nocturnal forest concerts is inconceivably striking. and pleasing to the hunter's ear. The effect, I may remark, is greatly enhanced when the hearer happens to be situated in the depths of the forest, at the dead hour of midnight, unaccompanied by any attendant, and ensconced within twenty yards of the fountain which the surrounding troops of lions are approaching, Such has been my situation many scores of times; and although I am allowed to have a tolerably good taste for music, I consider the catches with which I was then regaled as the sweetest and most natural I ever heard," Had the syren of Sweden poured her softest notes into his car, on those occasions, she would doubt'ess have discovered another Ulysses: chacun à son goût. But his first encounter with a lioness had well nigh proved a fatal one: the infuriated and crippled animal charged into the midst of his party; the hunter, however, having perfect confidence in his own shooting, coolly and steadily pitched his rifle to his shoulder, and stretched her a lifeless corpse upon the plain.

Our author now reaches Kuruman, a station established in the desert by that eminent London missionary Mr. Moffat. He describes Kuruman as a lovely green spot in the wilderness, having extensive, well irrigated, and extremely fertile gardens; and, in speaking of Mr. Moffat, he pays

a just tribute to his character, which, from all accounts, is that of an enlightened, energetic, and pious Christian. "Minister, gardener, blacksmith, gunsmith, mason, carpenter, glazier-every hour of the day finds this worthy pastor engaged in some useful employment-setting, by his own exemplary piety and industrious habits, a good example to others to go and do likewise."

When encamped in an ancient forest of cameel-dorn trees the hunter falls in with whole colonies of the social grosbeak, a bird with whose wonderful habitations the branches were loaded. "These remarkable birds," he proceeds, "which are about the size and appearance of the British greenfinch, construct their nests and live socially together under one common roof, the whole fabric being formed of dry grass, and exhibiting at a short distance the appearance of a haycock stuck up in the tree. The entrances to the nests are from beneath. They are built side by side, and when seen from below resemble a honeycomb." Every one who has read Mr. Moffat's work will remember the interesting account he gives of the occupation of a tree by several families of the Bakones, who had adopted that aërial mode of living to escape from the lions. The passage is so good, and the facts it details so remarkable, that we cannot do better than quote it. "Having travelled one hundred miles, five days after leaving Mosega we came to the first cattle outposts of the Matabele, when we halted by a fine rivulet. My attention was arrested by a beautiful and gigantic tree, standing in a defile leading into an extensive and woody ravine, between a high range of mountains. Seeing some individuals employed on the ground under its shade, and the conical points of what looked like houses in miniature protruding through its evergreen foliage, I proceeded thither, and found that the tree was inhabited by several families of Bakones; the aborigines of the country. I ascended by the notched trunk, and found, to my amazement, no less than seventeen of these aërial abodes, and three others unfinished. On reaching the topmost hut, about thirty feet from the ground, I entered and sat down. Its only furniture was the hay which covered the floor, a spear, a spoon, and a bowl full of locusts. Not having eaten anything that day, and from the novelty of my situation, not wishing to return immediately to the waggons, I asked a woman who sat at the door with a babe at her breast, permission to eat. This she granted with pleasure, and soon brought me more in a powdered state. Several more females came from the neighbouring roosts, stepping from branch to branch, to see the stranger, who was to them as great a curiosity as the tree was to him. I then visited the different abodes, which were on several principal branches. The structure of these houses was very simple. They adopted this mode of architecture to escape the lions which abounded in the country. During the day the families descended to the shade beneath, to dress their daily food. When the inhabitants increased they supported the augmented weight on the branches by upright sticks; but when lightened of their load, they removed these for fire-wood." The human rookery has evidently borrowed a leaf from the social grosbeak's book. Two families in England under the same roof would inevitably create a civil war; but in Africa it appears that many families, both of birds and savages, dwell at peace in

the same tree.

As Mr. Gordon Cumming advances into the interior the character of

his sport changes daily, his path is beset with danger, and instead of being, as he had always hitherto been, the aggressor, he has now to defend himself from the attacks of the fiercest and most unwieldy monsters of the creation. After recounting sundry charges from buffaloes and rhinoceroses, which, favoured by circumstances, he manages to evade, he gives an admirable description of an encounter with a Borèlé, which had well nigh proved fatal to him. Having fired with effect into this crusty-looking old bull rhinoceros, he spurs his horse and dashes right across his path. "Upon this," he tells us, "the hideous monster instantly charged me in the most resolute manner, blowing loudly through his nostrils; and although I quickly wheeled about to the left, he followed me at such a furious pace for several hundred yards, with his horrid horny snout within a few yards of my horse's tail, that my little Bushman, who was looking on in great alarm, thought his master's destruction inevitable. It was certainly a very near thing-my horse was extremely afraid, and exerted his utmost energies on the occasion. The rhinoceros, however, wheeled about and continued his former course; and I, being perfectly satisfied with the interview which I had already enjoyed with him, had no desire to cultivate his acquaintance any farther, and accordingly made for camp." The hunter's discretion gets the better of his valour, and, if what Major Denham relates be true, he may thank his stars that he was not impaled, horse and all, upon the long horn of the monster. "It was described to me," says the Major, as having carried a man and horse, spiked on his horn, more than one hundred yards, when, frightened by the cries of the people, he dropped them, and made his escape; the man was unhurt, but the horse died."

The great authorities on African natural history are all but unanimous in supposing that the white rhinoceros is identical with the unicorn of the ancients. Barrow says that "the animal alluded to in the book of Job has been supposed, with great plausibility, to be the one-horned rhinoceros. Moses also very probably meant the rhinoceros when he mentions the unicorn as having the strength of God." Dr. Robinson, however, differs from his brother naturalists; he believes the buffalo to be the Scripture unicorn, and maintains that the actual existence of this animal in Palestine leaves little doubt that it is the Reem of the Hebrew scriptures, for which both ancient and modern versions have substituted the apparently fabulous unicorn-"Reem is the Hebrew name of the animal which is called in our version unicorn, and which is several times coupled with the ox, especially in Job." The horn of the kobaoba, or white rhinoceros, Mr. Gordon Cumming tells us, often exceeds four feet in length; while the small or posterior horn seldom exceeds six or seven inches. This fact, coupled with the enormous bulk and power of the animal, is quite sufficient to warrant the supposition of its identity with the unicorn."

Our hunter boards the giraffe after the fashion of Captain Cornwallis Harris he fairly rides alongside the gigantic animals, and "heaves them to" with many a heavy broadside. Still, he looks upon giraffe as inglorious game, and pants for a brush at the fiercer lions and nobler elephants as trophies more worthy of his rifle.

The man who could of his own free will, nay more, with all his heart, ensconce himself in a hole, and there, despite of the wild and ferocious

beasts with which he was surrounded, could fall into a sound and refreshing slumber, must have had something more than a good conscience -he must have had the concentrated courage of ten lions. "While peeping from my hole," he says, "I beheld two enormous bull elephants, which looked like two great castles, standing before me. All night long herds of zebras and blue wildebeests capered around me, coming sometimes within a few yards: several parties of rhinoceroses also made their appearance. I felt a little apprehensive that lions might visit the fountain, and every time that hyenas or jackals lapped the water I looked forth, but no lions appeared. At length 1 fell into a sound sleep, nor did I again raise my head until the bright star of morn had shot far above the eastern horizon."

It has been the fashion among a certain class of men, who would claim for themselves a more refined humanity than pertains to their fellow-creatures, to describe our hunter's sport as blood-thirsty and wan. tonly cruel but he appears to have anticipated the charge, and offers an unanswerable reason for the destruction of animal life, to which he pleads guilty. He says, "It was ever to me a source of great pleasure to reflect that, while enriching myself in following my favourite pursuit of elephant hunting, I was feeding and making happy the starving families of hundreds of the Bechuana and Bakalahari tribes, who invariably followed my waggons and assisted me in my hunting, in numbers varying from fifty to two hundred at a time. These men were often accompanied by their wives and families; and when an elephant, hippopotamus, or other large animal was slain, all hands repaired to the spot, when every inch of the animal was reduced to biltongue, viz., cut into long narrow strips, and hung in festoons upon poles, and dried in the sun; even the entrails were not left for the vultures and hyænas, and the very bones were chopped to pieces with their hatchets to obtain the marrow, with which they enriched their soup.

The desert and wilds of South Africa have, it appears, other charms for our adventurous hunter, besides those of sport. The canny Scot turns his labours to account by trading for ivory with the savage chief of Bamangwato; but the dilatory mode of doing business adopted by Sicomy well nigh upsets the patience of the Highlander, interested though he was in the enormous profits which he expected to realize. "The price," he says, "which I paid for the muskets was £16 for each case containing twenty muskets; and the value of the ivory I required for each musket was upwards of £30, being about 3,000 per cent., which I am informed is reckoned among mercantile men to be a very fair profit. Athletic savages," he continues, "were constantly coming and going throughout the day in three different directions, bearing on their shoulders the precious spoils of the elephants of the Kalahari : and when the sun went down all my muskets were disposed of, and I found myself in the possession of a very valuable lot of ivory."

With respect to the peculiarities of the African elephants we will refer to them in another paper, and compare Mr. Gordon Cumming's excel lent description of them, with that of the Asiatic elephants, as recorded by other naturalists. But there is a small bird of the Buphaga genus, which, as a protector of the mighty rhinoceros, is worthy our immediate notice. From the information of a native our hunter is apprised of the whereabouts of a huge white rhinoceros lying asleep in a thick cover; but he says, "Before I could reach the proper distance to fire, several