CHAPTER I, 



BUFFALO. 



THE morning star was sufficiently high to enable me to 

 tell that dawn would soon make its appearance, as I got up 

 from my rude bed in camp, and, with some little trouble 

 and a good deal of grunting on his part, succeeded in 

 rousing my gun-bearer. 



No more picturesque scene could be imagined than 

 that by which I was surrounded as I sat smoking by the 

 ash-covered embers, waiting for the native to get my gun 

 and cartridges. A rough, though tolerably high fence of 

 thorn enclosed a space round the flat-crowned mimosa- 

 tree, through whose roof-like branches the stars shone 

 down upon us, and under which, in every variety of 



