United States or New Caledonia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When he was short of provisions for the Hottentots and other slaves, of whom he had a good many, he would go out with the other farmers who lived near him, and shoot quaggas for them to eat. Nobody but a Hottentot could live upon such flesh." "What is quagga?" "A wild ass, partly covered with stripes, but not so much as the zebra; a pretty animal to look at, but the flesh is very bad.
Suddenly in front of the herd of quaggas appeared a large party of people armed with spears and darts. Uttering loud shouts, the blacks began to send their missiles among the herd. The quaggas were thrown into the greatest confusion, some going on one side, some on the other, others turning in the direction from which we had come.
Sometimes we can see from here herds of buffaloes, and cameleopards, zebras, and all sorts of deer and quaggas; and there are savage animals too lions, rhinoceroses, and leopards, and elephants; indeed, he will not allow the boys to go far by themselves lest they should be attacked."
As the quaggas went off in the same direction which the eland had taken, of course Hendrik's road and theirs lay so far together; and on galloped he at their heels. He was curious to try the point much disputed in regard to horses how far a mounted quagga would be able to cope with an unmounted one.
There is a large body of gnoos and quaggas under that small hill to the westward; but there are better animals for the table when we get a little further to the northward." "Which are those?" "The eland, the largest of the antelope species, and sometimes weighing more than a thousand pounds; moreover, they are very fat, and very easy to run down. They are excellent eating.
But the young hunter saw that it would be imprudent to fire at them there, as it would prevent them from returning to the vley; so he restrained himself, and along with the others remained watching the quaggas all regarding them with a degree of interest which they had never before felt in looking at a drove of these animals.
"No animal is, when it stands at bay, or is driven to desperation; and, in confirmation of this, I once witnessed one of these animals the quaggas which, being pressed to the edge of a precipice by a mounted hunter, seized the man's foot with its teeth, and actually tore it off, so that, although medical aid was at hand, the man died from loss of blood."
He would lose his quagga and his saddle as well he regarded the eland as already lost he would have to walk back to camp, and get laughed at on his return. No matter for all that; his life was in danger if he kept on. The quaggas might gallop twenty, aye, fifty miles before halting. They showed no symptoms of being blown no signs of giving out.
They had completed the work before going to dinner, which, consequently, fell late on that day so nothing more remained to be done but to dine, and await the coming of the quaggas. At dinner they were all very merry, notwithstanding the immense fatigue they had gone through. The prospect of capturing the quaggas was very exciting, and kept the party in high spirits.
Of course there was a good deal of kicking, and plunging, and flinging, and many hard gallops, and some ugly falls, before it came to this; but both the Bushman Swartboy and the Bush-boy Hendrik were expert in the manège of horses, and soon tamed the quaggas to a proper degree of docility.
Word Of The Day