Bound for Khartoum Once More 



bad luck to it, we had to continue on our journey 

 and leave the elephants behind. They might 

 have crossed in half an hour, or they might have 

 remained on the other bank for two or three 

 days, and time was pressing. The chief reported 

 more ahead, and said that he had sent on a party 

 of his own natives to scour the country, and 

 order more men to go out for the same pur- 

 pose all round our next camp. Henceforward 

 we marched along a better four-foot road, 

 betokening the presence of villages hidden in the 

 bush a little way back. A few patches of simsim 

 and mahogo were visible at intervals on the rising 

 ground to the east. Of game tracks there were 

 very few, till on rounding a sharp bend in the 

 path we found ourselves face to face with a bull 

 buffalo gazing intently at us to discover who the 

 intruders might be that had broken into his soli- 

 tude. Buffaloes are wonderfully quick of hearing, 

 and as he hadn't bolted at the first sound of our 

 approach, as his kind usually do unless previously 

 annoyed, I was afraid he meant mischief to the 

 caravan, which was well up with us now that the 

 ground was drier. He had not a big head, but 

 was of the Abyssinian species, which carries 

 smaller horns, but is every bit as nasty as the 

 Cape buffalo found further south. Again the 

 Mannlicher proved its worth, as he dropped where 

 he stood with a bullet in his brain. We gathered 

 afterwards that he must have strayed from his 



