The Journal of a Sporting Nomad 
station. Here his progress was for a moment 
barred by a fence which consisted of six or seven 
strands of barbed wire, but he had treated it as 
so much cotton, and had evidently charged the 
obstruction, breaking two strands and bending 
the upright posts. He had left his mark on the 
barbs of the wire in the shape of mud and blood. 
This hurt had upset his equanimity, for he had 
walked up the small bank that bordered the rail- 
way track and then up the une until he came to 
a siding where were three miniature open trucks, 
the end of which he charged, smashing that part 
into matchwood. In this effort he had broken 
off a splinter from one of his tusks, which I 
picked up when I appeared on the scene shortly 
afterwards. He had amused himself by chewing 
portions of the woodwork into a pulp, leaving 
it in that state scattered around amongst the 
débris. He seems, after this escapade, to have 
slid down the steep embankment that was here, 
and rejoined the river farther up-stream. 
As an Austrian friend of mine, Count Couden- 
hove, was returning to Beira in a few days’ time, 
we decided to go together. I paid off my boys, 
gave them the greater part of my outfit, and 
sent them back to Salisbury. I offered to get 
them a ride in an empty truck as far as Chimoio, 
but they seemed to prefer the walk, having no 
doubt a lively recollection of the way the sparks 
from the engine had afflicted them on their way 
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