Buffalo 



thick swamps casually, or lie up in thick dusty 

 dry scrub by day. They have finished watering 

 and feeding long before five o'clock in the morning, 

 as a rule. Of course every animal does odd things 

 now and again. A friend recently saw one stand- 

 ing under a bush out in the open, and had a bang 

 at it, making sure that only a rhinoceros would be 

 out in the burning sun at ioa.m. He was fiercely 

 charged for his temerity, but managed to slay the 

 brute all right. 



I was run at in thick bush by two on another 

 occasion, but they had to stop to listen for me, as 

 I happened to be the right way of the wind. 

 Master never took such pains in his life to get 

 out of the way. 



I may say it is little short of madness to crawl 

 on one's hands and knees up one of their paths — 

 some two-and-a-half feet high by two feet wide — 

 in their pursuit. Both sides are impenetrable, and 

 one deserves to be soundly kicked for doing so. 

 I might almost put that under my " Don't " head- 

 ings. It would be very difficult indeed to shoot at 

 all, considering that, firstly, one is quite blown in the 

 first hundred yards, and the sweat is pouring into 

 one's eyes with the exertion of making one's way 

 along in an unnatural position ; and secondly, it is 

 quite dark enough without having a crashing 

 and snorting brute charging down to worry one, 

 besides making the passage forty thousand times 

 darker than it usually is. 



115 



