324 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



torrents, and we were enveloped on all sides in vast 

 masses of dense mist. We managed to raise a 

 breakflist of oribi and Kafir corn ; but for dinner 

 (our Christmas dinner) we had absolutely nothing. 

 I may say here that all the provisions we brought 

 with us from Pandamatenka ran out before we left 

 Mendonga's — coffee, sugar, tea, and everything else. 

 Mendon(;a had nothing in the way of European 

 provisions, having been absent for three years from 

 Quillimane, so that since leaving the Zambesi we had 

 lived entirely upon what I shot, and what we could 

 buy from the Kafirs, and had had nothing to drink 

 but water. In this dilemma, the weather showing no 

 signs of improvement, we sent some of our boys on 

 to the next town, which the Shakundas reported 

 to be not fiir off, to buy some fowls and meal both 

 for us and for themselves. About 2 p.m. the rain 

 ceased, but it seemed probable that it would soon 

 commence again. A herd of konze antelopes came 

 down just opposite us, on the other side of the river, 

 but, either seeing or hearing something suspicious, 

 decamped. I went after them a long way, and 

 eventually got a shot, but missed. The Kafirs we 

 had sent on to buy provender for our Christmas 

 dinner came back, reporting the town not far off, but 

 the people refusing to sell except at most exorbitant 

 prices. The clouds having now cleared a little, and 

 being without food of any sort, we at once packed up 

 and set off for the town, determined to buy something 

 for dinner. When close to the kraal, a little before 

 sundown, I espied a roan antelope a long way off ; 

 however, by wading through a boggy marsh and a 

 dense bed of reeds, where the water came up to my 

 middle, I reached a mound with some bushes upon it, 

 behind which I had last seen the roan antelope feeding. 



