304 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



As I walked towards them they raised their great 

 armoured heads and looked curiously at the first 

 human being with a hat and shirt on they had 

 probably ever seen. My small retinue of native 

 servants was just then some little distance behind, 

 and not until I was within fifty yards of them did 

 first one, then another of these massive black bulls 

 rise from his bed. But not immediately to run off, 

 for they stood their ground and still for some time 

 stared inquisitively — one might almost have said 

 menacingly — with outstretched noses and horns laid 

 back on their necks. However, in a long experi- 

 ence of African buffaloes, I have not found old bulls 

 of this species either savage or aggressive when not 

 molested — at any rate, when they are feeding or 

 resting in ground sufficiently open to allow them to 

 see anything approaching ; though a sudden charge 

 by a buffalo lying in long grass or thick jungle, 

 which has either been previously w^ounded by a 

 hunter or mauled by lions, is not an uncommon 

 incident of African travel. 



On the occasion of which I am speaking, when I 

 was not more than thirty yards from the five old 

 bulls, one of them actually came trotting towards me. 

 I then took off my hat and waved it, shouting out at 

 the same time. Then the old fellow turned and 

 trotted away, and soon breaking into a heavy, 

 lumbering gallop, was quickly followed by his com- 

 panions. Later on, the same day, another solitary 

 old buffalo bull allowed me and my native followers 

 to walk past within eighty yards of where he lay 

 without even troubling himself to get up. 



After the buffaloes, the bushbucks were the 

 tamest animals in this great natural game-park. 

 These lovely little animals, whose rich dark brown 

 coats are in this part of Africa most beautifully 

 banded and spotted with white, would stand gazing 

 at me, amongst the scrubby bush or open forest 



