"Ay, ay, sir," was the brisk reply, as the
bustling man of brandy and basins threw open
a small door, and ushered me into a little den,
with a mingled odour of tar, Stilton, and wet
mackintoshes. " All to yourself here, sir," said
he, and vanished.

AFTER AN OSTRICH.

IN lion-hunts and in tiger-hunts, and in boar-
hunts, there are joys and risks of which all
men have heard; but of the ostrich hunt the
world that is not used to running after ostriches,
has heard very little. Little more, indeed, than
some broken-down story about negroes who, being
dressed in the skins of the birds, are mistaken
by the flock for actual ostriches, and are
suffered to come near enough to shoot any bird they
may pick out with their arrows. There is also
a pretty fable (which is only a fable), that the
ostrich when pursued will hide his head in the
sand, and believe himself invisible. I know the
ostrich has a stupid face, but he is, for all
that, a sharp fellow, who knows his own interest
as well as the rest of us. He is wary and long-
sighted, one of the last creatures to put his own
head in a hole. I have hunted him in his own
deserts and can testify.

Every year as summer sets in, horsemen
arrive at the oasis of Derej from the mountains
in the north, distant about six days' journey.
They come after the ostrich, and stay only
during the summer; as it is only when the heat
is greatest that a horseman can have any chance
of overtaking the swift-footed bird. In cold
weather he will outstrip every pursuer.

An Arab friend of mine, with the short
name of Sidi Mohammed ben Omar ben
es-Sheikh Abderrahman Burjoob el-Rujbani, who
was bound for the hunting-ground, persuaded
me to go with him and try my skill at running
down an ostrich. My friend Sidi Etcetera has
a grand air, and lost no dignity although his
trip to Derej was made for the sake of gain. I,
who went only for sport, was looked upon with
much respectful wonder by my fellow-sportsmen.

We managed to reach Derej a day or two
before the hunt, that we might rest and prepare
for our fatigues to come. The hunt began on a
sultry morning in the middle of July. The
hot Gibli wind or simoom had been blowing for
several days, and the thermometer had only
fallen to ninety-eight degrees, or blood-heat,
just before sunrise. We were to have one of
the hottest days of a Saharan summer. So much
the better. The warm-coated ostriches shall find
it hot, and so shall we. The dangers of this
chase do not arise from the fierceness of the
animal pursued, but from the fierceness of the sun
that may strike down the huntsman. An Englishman
is much more likely to come off unscathed
from an encounter with a lion, than to return
from an ostrich-hunt without getting sunstroke
or brain fever.

Our party consisted of ten horsemen, and a
few scouts who had been sent out at daybreak
to explore the sand for footprints of ostriches,
and track them to their feeding-ground. We
were fairly mounted upon animals not so
fat as to conceal the beautiful lines of their ribs.
The bones of their haunches seemed ready to
start out through the skin. These features,
however, are common enough in Arab thoroughbreds.
We ourselves were as light weights as
we could be, having dispensed with four out of
five thick pieces of felt which invariably form
an Arab's saddle-cloth, and thrown off every
superfluous article of clothing; only taking care
to have our heads well wrapped up as precaution
against danger from the sun.

We started about two hours after sunrise,
and followed leisurely on the trace of our scouts.
After proceeding thus for about six miles, we
came upon a scout who said that five fine birds
were a little way off, grazing in a wady. Knowing
that they would not stray far, we dismounted to
give ease for a few minutes to our horses and
ourselves, and to allow our time to run still further
into the "kaila," or mid-day heat. A sultry
feverish wind blew from the south, and the sun's
glow was returned from the white sand under
our feet with almost unlessened strength. What
a drying-ground was here for washerwomen!
Wet clothes, dry in three minutes, might be
taken in as fast as they were taken out.

The Arabs, who are made of very porous clay,
absorbed long draughts of water, and hung little
gourd bottles of water to their saddle-bows.
We mounted again and set off. From the
top of a little hill, if you could call by that name
a height of about ten yards above the bottom
of the wady, we saw the ostriches; I suspect
they had some knowledge of us before we were
visible. They had already started at full trot;
and seemed to skim along without any exertion,
flapping their small downy wings to help them
onward, and, like horses in full career, kicking
up stones behind them. We went after them
at a canter: had we tried at once to catch them
in a gallop, our horses would soon have been
blown, and the birds would have got out of
reach. Our plan was to follow them as closely
as might be, without frightening them into their
quickest pace, and to keep them in view.

The birds soon parted: two going together
one way, and the others starting each in a
different direction. We followed a single
ostrich, a fine male; the feathers of the male being
more valuable.

Noon passed, and the sun was rapidly
declining. We had been following our ostrich for
more than four hours; but not in a straight
line, since these creatures have a whim tor
running in large circles. My hands and face
began to feel as if they had been skinned
and salted. The excitement and emulation
amongst us made me, however, forget
everything but the object of our chase. One by one
the horses of the Arabs dropped behind, dead
beat. Sidi Etcetera, two of the Arabs, and
myself, being the best mounted, alone kept up
the hunt. Our aim was to turn the ostrich,
and so drive him back to our companions. The