50 LARGE GAME. chap. i. 



idea of following a wounded buffalo into the thickest 

 cover it can take to is therefore a strange one, as it can 

 only be done on foot, have mentioned their fear of it ; and 

 undoubtedly more lives are annually lost in its pursuit 

 than in any other kind of hunting ; but then it must be 

 remembered that for one man who especially goes after 

 elephants, rhinoceros, or other game, there are ten who 

 make buffaloes their sole object. Generally speaking, they 

 do not charge until after they have been wounded, though 

 the contrary is occasionally the case, and I have personally 

 known one instance of it. Another instance was related 

 to me by my friend the late Mr. David Leslie, whose 

 experience in such matters was very great, and who 

 witliin a few weeks of his death had offered to write it 

 down for me for insertion here. As, however, he was 

 never able to do so, and as I have both heard the story 

 from him and from the principal actor in it, I am able to 

 give the more salient points from memory. 



Mr. Leslie, who, in addition to his other valuable 

 qualifications as a traveller and pioneer through the savage 

 tribes of South-Eastern Africa, among whom he obtained 

 great power and influence, for the use of which in her 

 interests the colony of Natal must always remain his 

 debtor, was a keen sportsman and a first-rate shot, and 

 on one of his expeditions in the interior was out buffalo- 

 shooting in the bush known as the Umbeka, which I have 

 already mentioned as being the home of some herds of 

 very small and vicious buffalo. The bush itself is chiefly 

 composed of cactus underbrush, which forms the densest 

 and most unpenetrable cover imaginable, and in which it 

 is utterly impossible to see an animal a yard off, and 



