coat and hat I had, feeling that as an Englishman it was my duty to look decent on such an occasion, washed, brushed my hair—with me a ceremony without meaning, for it always sticks up—and slipped a loaded Smith & Wesson revolver into my inner poacher pocket. Then I started out to see the fun, and avoiding the groups of surly-looking Boers, mingled with the crowd that I saw was gathering in front of a long, low building with a broad stoep, which I supposed, rightly, to be one of the Government offices. 

 Presently I found myself standing by a tall, rather loosely-built man whose face attracted me. It was clean-shaven and much bronzed by the sun, but not in any way good-looking; the features were too irregular and the nose was a trifle too long for good looks. Still the impression it gave was pleasant and the steady blue eyes had that twinkle in them which suggests humour. He might have been thirty or thirty-five years of age, and notwithstanding his rough dress that consisted mainly of a pair of trousers held up by a belt to which hung a pistol, and a common flannel shirt, for he wore no coat, I guessed at once that he was English-born. 

 For a while neither of us said anything after the taciturn habit of our people even on the veld, and indeed I was fully occupied in listening to the truculent talk of a little party of mounted Boers behind us. I put my pipe into my mouth and began to hunt for my tobacco, taking the opportunity to show the hilt of my revolver, so that these men might see that I was armed. It was not to be found, I had left it in the wagon. 

 “If you smoke Boer tobacco,” said the stranger, “I can help you,” and I noted that the voice was as pleasant as the face, and knew at once that the owner of it was a gentleman. 

 “Thank you, Sir. I never smoke anything else,” I answered, whereon he produced from his trousers pocket a pouch made of lion skin of unusually dark colour. 

 “I never saw a lion as black as this, except once beyond Buluwayo on the borders of Lobengula’s country,” I said by way of making conversation. 

 “Curious,” answered the stranger, “for that’s where I shot the brute a few months ago. I tried to keep the whole skin but the white ants got at it.” 

 “Been trading up there?” I asked. 

 “Nothing so useful,” he said. “Just idling and shooting. Came to this country because it was one of the very few I had never seen, and have only been here a year. I 

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