122 LARGE GAME. CHAP. n. 



but, taking a native with me who was acquainted with 

 the country, I kept on one side in search of game. The 

 country presented the usual peculiarities of all thorn dis- 

 tricts, stunted aloes and thorns clothing the stony ridges, 

 and gradually increasing in numbers until on the flats 

 the latter formed vast thickets, many of them all but 

 impenetrable, while a few euphorbias grew in the hotter 

 spots, and the water-courses, dry during winter, were 

 lined with wild dates and bananas and tree-ferns, with 

 here and there a wild fig-tree, or a white-stemmed um- 

 tombe towering above the rest. We were just in the act 

 of entering one of these thorn thickets when the native 

 who was guiding me, and who was in front, suddenly 

 stooped down, glanced back to see if I was following, and 

 then, making a motion to say he saw something, ran 

 rapidly though cautiously forward, while I repeated his 

 actions without an idea of what they meant, until he 

 pulled up and pointed out a black mass in front of us, 

 at the same time whispering " kulumane." 



It was a troop of six or seven of those animals, stand- 

 ing huddled together, so that, though I could see their 

 outlines, I could hardly distinguish one from another, but 

 as it was evident by their stamping and general uneasiness 

 that they suspected danger, I at once fired. As the bullet 

 told and it always does so loudly on these thick-skinned 

 animals, they trotted out, going across me and slightly 

 separating, so that I could see them plainly and had a 

 capital shot with my second barrel, bringing the one I 

 fired at down on the spot ; but it jumped up again, and 

 the whole of them, either turned by the shot, or, more 

 probably, only then discovering for the first time where 



