ottle of ink, ate a box of
wafers, and was found by the owner studying the watch-making practised
by "Dent, London." When we consider that this baboon was not two years
old at the time, and several young gentlemen of my acquaintance are ten
and eleven, it may fairly be expected that when he arrives at their
years, he may be able to rival them in many of their practices.

Upon the return march from Bushman's River, I was nearly having to pass
the night in the open country, without dinner, supper, or blankets.
Finding the slow pace of the waggons very disagreeable, and the road
dull and uninteresting, I proposed to a Lieutenant G--, of the party, to
join me in a little detour in the surrounding country. We left the
road, and riding at right angles to the line of its direction, continued
our journey in a supposed parallel direction to the road, after a dive
into the plain of about three miles. Now it so happened that when we
left, the road pointed nearly south, but shortly after it turned to the
east; thus, when we fancied that we were moving in a parallel direction,
we were in fact going directly away from it. We rode on quietly, taking
a bread-and-cheese luncheon from our pockets, and seeing only a few
ourebis, that were, however, very wild, until our attention was drawn to
a moving object by the side of a grassy watercourse. Watching this
object carefully, we soon saw it was a leopard, and rode towards it
quietly, so as not to cause an alarm, if possible, until we were near
it. When within about sixty yards, the animal saw us, and crouched down
in the grass. Having my favourite gun, the left barrel of which threw a
bullet with the precision of a rifle, I fired at the leopard as I saw it
crouching; it scarcely moved, and the bullet threw up no dust,
convincing me by this one circumstance that I had hit the animal.

We rode up to where it lay, and I was about dismounting and walking up
to the spot, when, just as my foot was out of the stirrup, the leopard
jumped up, gave a snarl, and bounded off, apparently safe and sound.
Both our horses reared and turned round, and, before I could arrange
matters, and bring my second barrel to bear, the leopard looked
beautifully small at the distance of three hundred yards. I pitched, a
bullet, however, just over him, with, of course, no result.

As the sun was nearly, setting, we now changed our direction at right
angles to the old one, thinking by this that we were steering