antagonist not to be trifled with. The colonists relate many instances
of arduous and even fatal encounters with the hunted leopard. The
following is one of these adventures, which occurred in a frontier
district in 1822, as described by one of the two individuals so
perilously engaged in it.

Two boors returning from hunting the Hartebeest, (_antelope bubalis_,)
fell in with a leopard in a mountain ravine, and immediately gave chase
to him. The animal at first endeavoured to escape by clambering up a
precipice; but being hotly pressed, and slightly wounded by a
musket-ball, he turned upon his pursuers with that frantic ferocity
which on such emergencies he frequently displays, and springing upon the
man who had fired at him, tore him from his horse to the ground, biting
him at the same time very severely in the shoulder, and tearing his face
and arms with his talons. The other hunter, seeing the danger of his
comrade, (he was, if I mistake not, his brother,) sprung from his horse,
and attempted to shoot the leopard through the head; but, whether owing
to trepidation, or the fear of wounding his friend, or the sudden
motions of the animal, he unfortunately missed.

The leopard, abandoning his prostrate enemy, darted with redoubled fury
upon this second antagonist; and so fierce and sudden was his onset,
that before the boor could stab him with his hunting-knife, he had
struck him in the eyes with his claws, and torn the scalp over his
forehead. In this frightful condition the hunter grappled with the
raging beast, and struggling for life, they rolled together down a steep
declivity. All this passed so rapidly, that the other boor had scarcely
time to recover from the confusion in which his feline foe had left him,
to seize his gun, and rush forward to aid his comrade, when he beheld
them rolling together down the steep bank in mortal conflict. In a few