36 WILD LIFE UNDER THE EQUATOR. 
solved at any rate to try to kill him instead of being 
trampled down by his huge feet. 
The sound of every one of his steps could be heard 
distinctly, as he ran away from me, and he was soon out 
of sight. He had gone into the forest, and nature fell 
back into its accustomed stillness. Now and then the. 
voice of a frog resounded strangely from the prairie. 
Suddenly a cloud came over the moon, and it grew 
almost dark; the wind blew strongly, for it was in the 
dry season and was quite chilly. After wandering a 
while I came at last to a large ant-hill and sheltered 
myself there, thinking at the same time that it would be 
a splendid place to hide and look for game. 
How strange my shadow appeared by the side of that 
ant-hill, when the moon shone again! 
I Aid not wait long for game. I had not lain long by 
the ant-hill before I saw coming out of the forest not far 
off a herd of Bos brachicheros, the wild bull of this part 
of Africa. How fantastic their bodies appeared, as one 
by one they came out of the forest: they were coming 
toward where I stood, and the wind blew toward me. 
IT counted, I think, twenty of these wild buffaloes. 
They stopped for a while as if to determine what direc- 
tion to take, and perhaps also to see if they might discov- 
er or smell the leopard, which is their most dangerous 
enemy, and then continued their march toward the ant- 
hill where I was. I became very excited, cocked my 
gun, and aimed at the bull which was heading the herd, 
then pulled the trigger; bang! and down he came. A 
general stampede followed, but just in the direction of 
the ant-hill. What did these fellows mean? Did they 
all want to charge me? No, they passed to the right and 
