The Reawakening: Scientific K.ri>lm'<ition L"_':; 



bag without any danger, however as we were busied about the flesh, it wan getting dark, 

 and we saw what we thought was a quantity of antelopes running about the rocks, 

 however they came nearer, and as I was lifting up a should. \r of the mule, I heard 

 a sudden exclamation from the men and there were these annoying vermin of lions, just 

 above in the very place we were going to sit, it was very dark and they just put their 

 heads over the stones, like big watch dogs. I thought it better not to fire in volley, 

 but to keep guns in reserve, in case they came on us so the Tailor tired first, but 

 missed and the brutes were away. It was of course unsafe to watch where we had 

 intended, especially as the night became very dark and so we went away, thoroughly 

 vexed. I had polished off a lion in great style at the Missionary station of which 

 I spoke ; it was a one eyed brute that had done an infinity of mischief and had been 

 hunted, I really am afraid to say how often. He came growling amongst the horses and 

 frightening the oxen, three nights when I was there and ate up a nice little dog that 

 I much wanted to buy. We started, the Missionary, the Tailor and myself with a great 

 posse of natives who tracked him beautifully; when we found, he was about 80 yards off and 

 bounding about, so that as I had but one barrel and was on horseback, I did not like 

 then to venture my reputation on a shot, so we cantered after him, clogs and men full 

 cry and after 3 boon got him nicely among the heavy sandhills, a loose lion is certainly 

 a fine beast, so I cantered to about 40 yards behind him, pulled up and placed a two 

 ounce ball very nicely in his stern. It was great fun to see him growl and lash his tail. 

 Well on he went and turned into a bush in a towering passion. Here we dismounted 

 and walked up the next sandhills, about 30 yards from him and the first bullet (from the 

 Missionary) shot him stone dead, and the little dog was undigested in his inside, hardly 

 at all chewed. Well going back to my story we found the rest of the mules unhurt and 

 we pushed on. Water was now to hand continually, and Andersson and myself alternately 

 rode. We had great ill luck with game, seeing none. I had however a very pretty 

 gallop after a giraffe and after wounding him, drove him to a tree in front of the cart 

 and there shot him. I had only my little rifle with 32 bore but I fired conical bullets, 

 steel pointed, and he dropped just like one of the oxen at Edstone on a Monday morning. 

 This was a very welcome addition to our food, for we were very weak from hunger, it 

 was near a native village and I exchanged the flesh for ostrich eggs, milk, sweet gum 

 (to eat) >fec. >fcc. and we stopped and gorged ourselves for two days. So we went on, and 

 on the fifteenth day reached Rehoboth 1 . The men were tired and partly mutinous, and 

 the Namaquas (a sort of Hottentot) had driven every native away and all their cattle, 

 and not one was to be got. Fortunately an American lived there, who had 50 oxen to 

 sell. I took him into my service and bought his oxen at 25s. each half of them being 

 broken in. To break in the remainder was a dreadful labour, but now all 47 (3 being 

 killed in the process) are excellent draught oxen 6 or 7 of them good riding oxen and 

 we think nothing of packing the wildest beast. The men have been tossed about 

 a little, and I got a vicious poke made at me, when on horseback, but turned the horse 



1 In January, 1 909, Professor H. H. W. Pearson met at Rehoboth an old woman, 

 Mrs Bassingthwaite, who remembered distinctly Galton visiting her father's house when 

 she was a girl, seven years old. He was the " very intelligent Englishman, a blackmith," 

 Dixon by name, mentioned in Tropical South Africa, 1st edn., p. 117. For a lifetime 

 she had wondered what had become of him and why he never came back ! 



