290 ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA, 



ward a few steps, toolc up a position under a wide shady 

 tree, not evincing any further signs *of fear. Thus I 

 was enabled to take my time and select the finest head 

 in the troop. After about twenty minutes spent in 

 studying the set of the heads. I shot one princely old 

 bull, when they all made off. Following on their spoor 

 for a short distance, I found my bull lying dying be- 

 neath a thorn-tree, and his comrades standing near him. 

 As ths old bull died, he roared loudly, as buffaloes are 

 wont to do. His comrades came forward and walked 

 round him, smelling the blood, when I wounded two 

 more, and a little after a third, which the natives dis- 

 covered on the following day. On returning to camp 

 I dispatched men for the head of the buffalo and a sup- 

 ply of meat. 



Next day, while exploring a fine mountainous tract 

 of country to the southwest, I suddenly found myself 

 in my old wagon-spoor of '45, within a short distance 

 of the bold gorge in the mountains in which my oxen 

 had been chased by lions. In this fine pass two streams 

 of water meet : it is a first-rate district for game when 

 the country has not been ransacked by Griqua hunt- 

 ers. I immediately found the spoor of a troop of buf- 

 faloes : it led me into a rich, green, and well-wooded 

 glen in the hills, through which one of the afore-men- 

 tioned streams flowed. The wind was as foul as it could 

 blow, and this troop got my wind. Returning from 

 spooring them, however, I very soon fell in with anoth- 

 er troop, reposing under dense shade in the same glen. 

 I crept in within thirty yards of them, and there lay 

 for upward of an hour, endeavoring to select the finest 

 head. The buffalo which I wanted was lying down, 

 his body screened by stout thorn branches. I miglit 

 easily have shot any of the others through the heart if 



