Читать книгу Meridiana: The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians. In South Africa онлайн

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As the young astronomer lay musing over all these things, and asking himself a thousand questions which he could not answer, his eyelids became heavy, and at length he slept soundly. When he awoke, the sun was already hidden behind the western hills, whose picturesque outline stood out sharply against the bright horizon. Some gnawings of hunger told him that supper-time was near; it was, in fact, six o'clock, and just the hour for returning to the waggon at the bottom of the valley. At that very moment a report resounded from a grove of arborescent heaths, from twelve to fifteen feet high, which was growing along the slope of the hills on the right. Almost immediately the bushman and Top made their appearance at the edge of the wood, the former dragging behind him the animal that he had just shot. "Come, come, master purveyor!" cried Emery, "what have you got for supper?"

"A spring-bok, Mr. William," replied the hunter, throwing down an animal with horns curved like a lyre. It was a kind of antelope, more generally known by the name of "leaping buck," and which is to be met with in every part of South Africa. It is a charming animal, with its cinnamon-coloured back, and its croup covered with tufts of silky hair of a dazzling whiteness, whilst its under part is in shades of chestnut brown; its flesh, always excellent eating, was on this occasion to form the evening repast.