354 LARGE GAME. CHAP. vn. 



a herd tried to pass their way. In other respects the 

 arrangements were the same as on the day previous, and 

 we could see more game even from the waggon than there 

 had then been. 



I had not long to wait to-day. The first herd when 

 disturbed made off up to a spot which I knew was tenanted 

 by a stop ; the second, however, came direct towards me, 

 the native horsemen following in their wake with naked 

 arms and legs flying like moving windmills, and yelling 

 and. shouting at the top of their voices. I watched them 

 until the herd was within three hundred yards, and then 

 ducking down I ran to my battery, and cocked in succes- 

 sion all the six barrels of which it consisted. As the 

 foremost of them reached the descent they exchanged 

 their lumbering but swift gallop for a trot, and in a few 

 seconds the whole space in front of me was filled with 

 dark-red bodies, jostling and pushing in their hurry to 

 get across. As soon as I thought that there was no 

 possibility of their breaking back, I covered a shoulder 

 and pulled the trigger. The struggling mass got wild 

 with fear and plunged forward, and again and again, 

 almost as excited as the beasts themselves, I fired at suc- 

 cessive shoulders, and as the last of them disappeared over 

 the further bank I stood with empty guns and an aching 

 arm, while four, out of upwards of forty, hartebeest lay 

 either dead or dying in front of me. 



I had hardly loaded one out of the three muzzle- 

 loaders, when the shouting above made me run to the top 

 of the bank and look over, and there I saw another herd, 

 the same one that had been first started, and which had 

 been turned by the stop, galloping down the side of the 



