XI SECOND VISIT TO VICTORIA FALLS 225 



stumps, instead of running off, only wheeled round 

 and looked at me in a way very suggestive of 

 charging. But, if such were its intention, it was 

 never acted upon, for with a bullet from my second 

 gun I brought it bellowing to its knees. At the 

 shot the one first wounded got on its legs again, 

 and they then both ran together, and, after swaying 

 backwards and forwards, fell alongside one another, 

 so close indeed that in its death struggles the one 

 kept kicking its dead comrade on the nose. One 

 of these buffaloes had been fearfully lacerated and 

 bitten about the neck and the tops of the shoulder- 

 blades, only a short time previously, by a lion, which, 

 however, it had evidently at last succeeded in beating 

 off. The wounds smelt most offensively, and the 

 meat of the shoulder-blades was quite green, and 

 utterly uneatable. This old fellow would, no doubt, 

 have been extremely vicious, and it was lucky that 

 I made short work of him. Before proceeding on 

 our way, my Kafirs dragged the carcases round, 

 and left them with the noses touching, looking into 

 one another's eyes, in which position the skulls and 

 horns no doubt remain to this day. 



On my return to the waggons I found that the 

 Gardens had already trekked out, and that George 

 Wood was away hunting to the eastward. On 

 Monday morning, after a full day's rest, the first I 

 had had for several months, I again left the waggons, 

 striking into the hills to the north-east of our camp, 

 and then working my way down to the Victoria 

 Falls. From the falls I walked back to Daka in two 

 days, shooting and cutting up two zebras on the 

 road. On this trip 1 saw no signs of elephants, nor 

 was I more successful during the latter half of 

 October. On the 2nd of November a large herd of 



Q 



