46 THROUGH GASA LAND. 



but the person I bought it from as well. After all, it 

 was the fault of neither of them, for I was shooting 

 out of it double the charge for which it was in- 

 tended. 



Dillon, however, in the afternoon shot a three- 

 quarter grown cow buffalo, as fine a piece of beef as 

 ever I remember to have eaten. It was, moreover, 

 as fat as a stall-fed heifer, the great desideratum in 

 all meat obtained upon the African veldt. There 

 one never tires of fat ; in fact, you seem to have an 

 insatiable craving for it, the result, I believe, of being 

 almost entirely deprived of vegetable diet. 



In my walk next day I selected the side of the 

 river for my stroll. Francolins, guinea-fowl, bush- 

 koran, and bush-pauw were very numerous. Of the 

 two first-mentioned handsome birds there seemed to 

 be no limit to their numbers. With the aid of a 

 dog, a sportsman might have loaded a horse with his 

 spoils. Spoor of all kinds of game, from the diminu- 

 tive bush-bok, so common in Natal, to the towering 

 giraffe, was to be seen wherever the river banks 

 shelved and made access to the water easy. Up one 

 reach of the stream that I had a clear view of for 

 three or four hundred yards I saw at least six hippo- 

 potami. Doubtless there were many more belonging 

 to this herd that were at the time submerged. Wild 

 fowl were also in abundance, Egyptian geese, spur- 

 Avinged geese, and Hottentot duck being possibly 

 the most numerous, while darters sat upon every bare 



