122 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. vi 



way next day down the valley to our camp. In the 

 afternoon, W. went out and shot a black rhinoceros, 

 whilst I occupied myself in picking out the little 

 black ends of the wait-a-bit thorns which were 

 pretty evenly distributed over my person. The 

 next day, we again made a start for Linquasi, and, 

 whilst crossing a large open glade, came across a 

 herd of buffaloes, two of which W. shot. One of 

 these was a very tat cow, and the meat delicious, 

 being tender and juicy, and fully equal to the best 

 beef. That evening we slept at Chuma-Malisse. 



On the following morning, about two hours after 

 leaving camp, and whilst passing through a belt of 

 young forest, we had the luck to run right into a 

 herd of elephant cows. It was a strong temptation 

 to shoot, but I judged it better not to reopen the 

 wound on my cheek, and so only ran with W., and 

 helped to load and hand him the guns. He killed 

 three, and our Hottentot boy also bagged one, 

 besides a small thing that one of the Kafirs knocked 

 over, which ought never to have been shot, and 

 which I do not count. On sighting these elephants, 

 we had put down the water calabashes, and laid a 

 large thin sheet of meat, about a yard square, cut 

 from the ribs of one of the buffaloes, on a patch of 

 grass, and in their flight they ran right over these 

 things, breaking two calabashes, whilst one of them 

 trod fair in the centre of the piece of buffalo meat, 

 which was only about half an inch thick, and stamped 

 a hole through it just the size of her foot. That 

 same day we chopped out all the tusks, and the 

 next evening reached Linquasi, where we found our 

 bullocks, horses, dogs, and indeed everything else 

 at the waggons, safe and in good order. 



