Hunting in East Africa 



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pressed on as swiftly and noiselessly as possible. 

 We had not gone far before we came upon 

 a small opening, from the center of which rose 

 an acacia not more than eight inches in thick- 

 ness of trunk and perhaps eighteen feet high. 

 It was forked at the height of a man's shoulder. 

 I carried the 8-bore, and was glad of an oppor- 

 tunity to rest it in the convenient fork before 

 me. I had just done so, when crash ! snort ! 

 bellow ! came several animals (presumably buf- 

 falo) in our direction. One gun-bearer literally 

 flew up the tree against which I rested my rifle; 

 the other, regardless of consequences, hurled 

 his naked skin against another but smaller tree, 

 also thorny; both dropped their rifles. I stood 

 sheltered behind eight inches of acacia wood, 

 with my rifle pointed in front of me and still 

 resting in the fork of the tree. The noise of 

 the herd approached nearer and nearer, and my 

 nerves did not assume that steelly quality I had 

 imagined always resulted from a sudden dan- 

 ger. Fly I could not, and the only tree climb- 

 able was already occupied; so I stood still. 



Just as I looked for the appearance of the 

 beasts in the little opening in which I stood, the 

 crashing noise separated in two portions — each 

 passing under cover on either side of the open- 



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