XIV TWO BUFFALO BULLS 291 



Now, Mr. Drake, another English hunter, had 

 been shooting buffaloes there the day before, and I 

 think it more than probable that the animal which so 

 nearly killed my friend was one that had been 

 wounded on that occasion. 



Another very similar case occurred to a young 

 Boer, Petrus Potgieter, several years ago on the river 

 Impaqui. One morning old Petrus Jacobs, the well- 

 known old elephant -hunter, had been shooting 

 buffaloes along the river, and besides killing some 

 had wounded others. In the afternoon young 

 Potgieter was pursuing a herd of giraffes over the 

 same ground, when one of the wounded buft'aloes, 

 which was standing in a patch of bush near to which 

 he passed, rushed out and dashed both him and his 

 horse to the ground. The infuriated animal then 

 made a charge at him, and, catching its horn in his 

 coat, tore one side of it off. Before receiving any 

 further hurts Potgieter made his escape into a mopani 

 tree, and the buffalo retired. The horse died of its 

 injuries. 



I myself once had a horse killed under me by a 

 buffalo. This occurred in May 1874, when for the 

 first time journeying from Tati to the Zambesi. 

 The following account of this misadventure I have 

 transcribed from the diary which I wrote at the 

 time. 



On the loth of May 1874, after crossing the dry 

 sandy bed of the river Nata, I rode out in search of 

 game, and when the sun was about an hour high 

 struck the spoor of two old buffalo bulls, and after a 

 severe chase at last sighted them, looking, with their 

 short legs and huge round sterns almost devoid of 

 hair, very like rhinoceroses. I waited till we reached 

 a tolerably open piece of ground, and then, reining up 



