A BUFFALO DRIVE 



ICTURE to yourself a huge swamp, 

 some ten miles long by three across, of 

 reeds fifteen to eighteen feet high, and 

 underfoot a boggy slush over one's 

 ankles. It is early dawn, and the mosquitoes, 

 that will soon be dispersed by a brazen sun, are 

 biting and sucking for dear life, as it is not often 

 they meet a confiding man to feed off in this part 

 of the globe, and him white into the bargain. 

 Dead silence prevailed everywhere except for the 

 brass band provided by the mosquitoes playing 

 all round us. 



Some time previously we, my friend Wilson 

 and I, had come to this very place in pursuit 

 of game and had put up a herd of buffalo, but 

 could not get in a shot owing to the impenetrable 

 character of the undergrowth. Since that we 

 had on frequent occasions tried again, but always 

 with the same want of luck, so eventually we 

 decided to build ourselves perches — a thatch of 

 sticks and grass raised some eighteen feet high 

 on stout uprights sunk in the ground, and firmly 

 lashed with cross-pieces to withstand a consider- 

 able shock. We had built them on the edge of 



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