CHAP. i. BUFFALO. 3 



As soon as I could see the sight of my gun I left the 

 Kaffir behind, as, though they are sometimes capital 

 spoorers, following a track as if by instinct, they are at 

 the same time as often careless ; and absolute noiseless- 

 ness, especially when the game is still on the move, and 

 consequently more watchful, is the great point to be 

 attained. After telling him to come to me if I fired, I 

 crept on through the low scrub, stealing along the 

 narrow game-paths so as to avoid the rustle of the 

 grass, and in a few minutes I saw something red moving 

 among the trees, and stopped to watch it. It turned out 

 to be a troop of impalla coming back from water, and 

 making for some of the grassy glades. There might have 

 been seventy or eighty of them picking their way along 

 in Indian file, nibbling here and there, but always moving, 

 and seeming like a troop of ghosts in the dim twilight 

 and silence. I had, however, plenty of meat in camp, 

 and being also unwilling to disturb any larger game that 

 there might be within hearing, I waited unseen till they 

 had all passed and then proceeded. 



Several times I came across different herds of the same 

 antelope moving out of the hot thickets which lined the 

 river, but for some time I saw nothing else. At last I 

 made out a black shadow standing in a clump of bush, 

 which practice told me was a water-antelope, and as it, 

 at any rate, would be worth killing, and there was a strip 

 of thorns which would conceal me till 1 was within 

 twenty yards of it, I got into them and made the best of 

 my way towards it. I reached the spot without making 

 any noise sufficient to disturb it, and on peering through 

 the bushes I saw that it was a bull, and at once covered 



