134 ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



light sleep was disturbed by the tramp of aporoachirig 

 wild animals. I peeped from my hole, and s£.w a herd 

 of about twenty shaggy blue wildebeests, or brindled 

 gnoos, cautiously advancing to the water. They were 

 preceded by a patriarchal old bull, the finest in the 

 herd. I fired at him, and heard the ball tell upon his 

 shoulder, upon which he and the whole troop galloped 

 off in a northerly direction, enveloped in a cloud of red 

 dust. Being thirsty, I then walked up to the eye of 

 the fountain, and, having imbibed a draught of its sul- 

 phurous water, in a very few minutes I was once more 

 asleep. 



On the 23d I stood up in my hole at dawn of day, 

 and, having donned my old gray kilt and Badenoch 

 brogues, took up the spoor of the herd of brindled 

 gnoos. After I had proceeded a short distance I per- 

 ceived the head of the old bull looking at me over a 

 small rise on the bushy plain. The head disappeared, 

 and I heard a loud noise of tramping, as of an animal 

 endeavoring to gallop upon three legs. On gaining this 

 rise I again saw the handsome head, with its strangely- 

 hooked, fair-set horns, gazing at me from the long grass 

 some hundred yards in advance. He had lain down. 

 I held as though I intended to go past him ; but before 

 I neared him he sprang to his feet, and endeavored to 

 make off from me. Poor old bull ! I at once perceiv- 

 ed that it was all over with him. He was very faint 

 from loss of blood, and one fore leg was broken in the 

 shoulder. He made a tottering run of about a hund- 

 red yards, and again lay down, never more to rise. 1 

 walketl up to within eighty yards of him, and sent a 

 bullet through his heart. Receiving the ball, he rolled 

 over on his side, and expired without a groan. I then 

 made for my wagons, and dispatched men with a span 



