and saddle Colesberg.

In a few minutes the giraffes were slowly advancing within two hundred
yards, stretching their graceful necks, and gazing in wonder at the
unwonted wagons. Grasping my rifle, I now mounted Colesberg, and rode
slowly toward them. They continued gazing at the wagons until I was
within one hundred yards of them, when, whisking their long tails over
their rumps, they made off at an easy canter. As I pressed upon them
they increased their pace; but Colesberg had much the speed of them,
and before we had proceeded half a mile I was riding by the shoulder
of the dark chestnut old bull, whose head towered above the rest.
Letting fly at the gallop, I wounded him behind the shoulder; soon
after which I broke him from the herd, and presently going ahead of
him, he came to a stand. I then gave him a second bullet, somewhere
near the first. These two shots had taken effect, and he was now in my
power, but I would not lay him low so far from camp; so having waited
until he had regained his breath I drove him half way back toward the
wagons. Here he became obstreperous; so loading one barrel, and
pointing my rifle toward the clouds, I shot him in the throat, when,
rearing high, he fell backward and expired.

This was a magnificent specimen of the giraffe, measuring upwards of
eighteen feet in height. I stood for nearly half an hour engrossed in
the contemplation of his extreme beauty and gigantic proportions; and
if there had been no elephants, I could have exclaimed, like Duke
Alexander of Gordon, when he killed the famous old stag with seventeen
tine, "Now I can die happy." But I longed for an encounter with the
noble elephants, and I thought little more of the giraffe than if I
had killed a gemsbok or an eland.