VIII EXCITING EXPERIENCES 139 



them were followed, after having been wounded, 

 into thick bush, and there finally despatched. 



If the Cape buffalo was really such a ferocious 

 and diabolically cunning beast as it has often been 

 represented to have been, it seems to me that I 

 have been very badly treated in the way of adven- 

 tures with these animals. I have, of course, had a 

 few more or less exciting experiences with buffaloes, 

 but they only happened occasionally, and I never 

 thought it necessary to make my will before attack- 

 ing a herd of these animals. In 1874, when very 

 young and inexperienced, and very badly armed 

 with a clumsy muzzle-loading elephant gun, my 

 horse was tossed and killed by an old bull which I 

 had been chasing, and I afterwards received a blow 

 from one of its horns on the shoulder as I lay on 

 the ground. I was once knocked down, too, by 

 another buffalo, which charged from behind a bush 

 at very close quarters, but I escaped without serious 

 injury. On another occasion an old bull which had 

 been recently mauled by lions, and at which one of 

 my Kafirs had thrown an assegai, put me into a 

 tree, as I had not a gun in my hands, when it 

 charged. I once dodged a charging buffalo by 

 leaping aside when its outstretched nose was quite 

 close to me, and then, swinging myself round a small 

 tree, ran past its hind-quarters ; but I was young 

 then, in perfect training and full of confidence in 

 myself. Following on the blood spoor of wounded 

 buffaloes, very cautiously in soft shoes, and holding 

 my rifle at the ready and on full cock, I believe I 

 have often in thick bush just got a shot in, in time 

 to prevent a good many of these animals from 

 charging. I became used to this work, and my 

 eyes, through constant practice, could see a buffalo 

 standing in thick cover as soon as it was possible to 

 do so, and as soon as it could see me. My only 

 clothing, too, in those days used to be a cotton shirt, 



