266 LARGE GAME. CHAP. v. 



the whole length of the animal ; while the shot that had 

 rolled it over in the first instance had also struck in the 

 neck, and had grazed the bone. The noise the men made 

 in going home was deafening. They never ceased singing 

 the hunting-song at the top of their voices the whole of 

 the six or seven miles we had to go ; while man after man, 

 amid the shouts and acclamations of the others, sprang 

 out of the ranks and performed the bravery-dance. Old 

 Tekwane, whose stinginess to his own people, whatever it 

 might be to Europeans, was a proverb, forgot himself in 

 slaughtering two oxen, and a good deal more than half 

 the night was spent between feasting, singing, and re- 

 peated bravery-dances. 



The other instance to which I have referred occurred 

 at the Nkwavuma. I had just arrived there from the 

 Pongolo, and the men I had sent on a couple of days 

 previously had formed a rough camp round a solitary 

 clump of bush, which stood in an open surrounded on all 

 sides but that which faced the river by dense ukaku 

 thorns. I arrived at dusk, and while lying down resting 

 an hour afterwards, I was disturbed by hearing a rustling 

 sound, and once or twice by the breaking of a rotten 

 stick, and turning to a boy by me, who was learning to 

 be a hunter I asked him if he had heard it. He said 

 yes, and, after listening for a minute or two more, we 

 took up our guns and stole out, thinking that as the camp 

 had so lately been formed the game might not have dis- 

 covered it, and that some stray buffalo which had been 

 lying in the reeds might be grazing near us. After going 

 about twenty yards from camp we caught the sound 

 again, seemingly proceeding from the shadow of some 



