By Tamarind and Mhowa. 1C 3 



Now we are approaching the second bait, and delight to 

 see the steady tracks leading straight on in its direction. 

 Almost as if we had been actual eye-witnesses can we 

 picture his sudden halt last night, as he turned that corner, 

 and saw the poor little buff tethered there before him. So- 

 we, too, cautiously turn the corner in that winding water- 

 course ! 



The hela is gone ! The bait taken ! 



A couple of patient inquisitive crows are perched, not 

 far from where he was tied. As we gaze, there is a distant 

 " Caw ! " and a third is seen flying low through the trees 

 to join them. Save for this there is a grim death-like 

 tillness. We stare from a distance. 



See ! That rope that confined the little buffalo's hind 

 leg ; it hangs, broken, from the root to which he was 

 fastened. There is the trail of a heavy body dragged 

 along the sand and away round the corner of a little branch 

 ndla. This, as we know from our inspection of the sur- 

 roundings yesterday evening, leads only a hundred yards 

 or so into the grassy jungle, and terminates in a ad-de- 

 sac. There is no thicker covert in all this bandi than that 

 formed by the low tamarisks which fill this little branch 

 ravine ; but it is of small extent, and a few well-directed 

 stones would search it thoroughly. 



One of the crov/s now leaves his perch, and flies farther 

 up the deep-cut offshoot, curving up to and settling on a 

 convenient bough. Then down go his head and tail, and 

 " Caw ! " comes his voice. No need for human speech, 

 friend corvus. Well do we know what you would 

 say ! 



No hunter has been here before us this year, so, perhaps, 

 the slayer of our buffalo is unsophisticated enough to be 

 lying up near his u kill." 



