GIRAFFE HUNTING IN AFRICA. (Detroit Free Press.)

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2149, 17 April 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

GIRAFFE HUNTING IN AFRICA. (Detroit Free Press.)

" Tire pair of giraffes in this garden are the finest I have ever seen out of Africa. They remind me of a pair we shipped from Cape Town in the middle of February, 1868, to New York. Those were beautiful beasts : but uufortunntely one of them died on the way, and only the male lauded at his destination. He got in on the 4th July, 1868, and was much a novelty at that time that the newspapers all over the country gave him columm of space. "Clayton and myself captured those beasts personally. It was toward the close of January when we struck the north boundary of Cape Colony and got fairly into the giraffe country. " You deploy to the east,' said Clayton, one morning, 'and I will take a route to the west, meeting at the base of the hill directly ahead. You will find the cabin of Herman Deetrick about a mile forward. Ask him if he has seen any sport about lately. 1 " I found the cabin of the Boer easily enough — a poor little mud hut— but before I reached it a 12-year old girl ran up to the door screaming :" '•' Marie ist velohren ! Vater, Marie ist velohren I' " The door was dashed open and the Boer ran oat with consternation on hit face. " * Aoh, no !" be cried ; 'wie ist das !"' "But the little girl's answer was a fresh flood of tears. ••• What* up?' I yelled. " 'Ich kaun nicht English !' came ths answer, followed by the little girl's sobbing cry ; ' Marie ist velohren !' "That was all I could gather from th«m— that Maria was lost. She had been -wandering about in the scrub grass near the cabin earlier in the morning, but when the 12-year-old looked for her* a moment before my approach she was gone. We beat about in the coppices close to the cabin for an hour, but could find no trace of the lost Marie. It was my private opinion that she had been carried off by a lion, but none the less I cut across the country to intercept Clayton and bring him and our kaffirs over to help in the search. But when Clayton heard my story he laughed. 11 • You are making an ass of yourself, Fritz,' ho remarked. ' I know Herman and I know Marie. You know nothing about the circumstances of the case ; but you may take my word for it she is just as well off in the woods as she would be in his cabin. But all the same, we will do oar best to find her, and we can do that best by keeping right on with our business. Ten to one she will be found with or near the first herd we fall on.' 41 ' Good heavens ! Clayton !" I began, you don't seem t6 understand the case. 'The little girl is loat, and porhaps this minute walking into the lair of a python !' '• But he only laughed some more. ' I tell you, Fritz,' he said, ' you are making an ass of yourself. Marie is—" ''Before he could continue the explanation one of the Kaffirs came running back orying : " Baas ! Baas ! Tootla." which is the kaffir name for the giraffe. Clayton spurred forward at once, and satisfied that there was some mystery about the loat girl, I followed him. When we reached the crest of a little hill overlooking a plain grown up in wait-a-bits and camel's thorn we saw the giraffes. There were eight of them in the herd, an old chestnut-coloured bull overtopping the younger animals by at least a foot. All were browsing on the tops of the umbrella-shaped acacias, for which purpose their high shoulders and long necks are admirably adapted. "We don't want the old one," said Clayton, " single out a young cow, and I will take after a bull. Don't waste your time with Marie, though, if she is among them, for heaven's sake." "We swung ourselves well down on the off-side of our horses, and keeping in the shelter of the shrubs as far as possible, walked slowly down on the herd, getting within easy rifle shot before shey saw us ; but theu they went away at a speed that made up to them for lost time. With their tails elevated and ourled in a single curl, like the tail of a hog, they loped away us graceful as swans on the water. AH but ono. That one stared at us for a second and then to my surprise ambled slowly towards us. " 'Drop her !" yelled Clayton, peeing me about to swing my lasso, "that's Marie !" " Sure enough, Marie was only a tame giraffe. In a fair run over an open country a good horse is more than a match for the best giraffe that ever ran. But these creatures never make a fair run, and in consequence are very difficult to catch. They always head for the nearest thicket, and their great strength, and tough hide carry them through jungles that a horse cannot penetrate. It was so in this case, and we gained on our, leaders rapidly, but not enough to catch them before they went into a wait-a-bit copse, the hooked horns of which tore us so that when we got through we- were bleeding from wounds in arms and legs ; but worse than the wounds was the fact that' our friends were far ahead. It was a stern chase and a long chase. The perfume which these animals give off when pursued seemed to make the nir thick in their wake, and kept us continually spurring our horses, who are always strangely affected by it. It is really not really disagreeable, but it seems to fill a horse with unconquerable fear. A horse perfectly new to giraffe hunting will not pursue thorn at all, and it is to this effect that the extreme difficulty of the capture is to \t more or less asoribed. " There are some beautiful landscapes in the valley of the Orange River in South Africa, especially during the rainy j season, .when the grass is aa luxurant ox ! the finest meadow. The country is gently rolling, sandal wood and; other trees growing freely on the hill-tops, and the ravine* filled with thickets of thorny shrubs, which look beautiful enough, but invariably shelter serpents, hyenas and lions. During my time, from 1860 to 1870, the plains were covered with gemsbok and other antelopes in herds like .cattle. "After getting through a, number of copses we closed on our chase, and riding square, into them I turned out £ho, biggest cow aud whirled my lasso, which, was made like, a South American bolas, with heavy weights at the end of it. My horse planted himself for the shock too quick and broke the aim, so that the lasso failed to catch, and the cow went away towards a heavy jungle, to which Claytons bull was also making good time. . . "That was where they fooled themselves. The. jungle was altogether too thick for them, and while they were floundering out we managed to catch , them— Cjay ton's, about the neck and mine about the hind legs. The, next thing was to hobble them and to go into camp until our kaffirs came up. "In three weeks we were back to the coast with the camelopards fairly tamed, and almost immediately shipped them to Van Amburg via Liverpool. I forgot to say that we bad no trouble in catching Marie later in the day, and the next morning we despatched one of our kaffirs with her to Deetriok's cabin."

Leonard J. Thomas, of Salisbury Cove, in jthe town of Eden, Me., beiug over eighty years old, is probably the oldest postmaster in the United States. He has held the office almost continuously for nearly half-a-century, under the different administrations, and has never changed his politics, being an old* fashioned Democrat. Is Paris, one day last week, a man was told that hia wife hud formed an intimacy with another man. Watching for them, the husband ran a » words tick, which he had concealed in an umbrella, through the body of the lover, who shortly afterwards died. He wounded the woman in the wriat,