A BOLD BOER WOMAN. 263 



distance, and with it another sound, the yell of a lion 

 wounded to the death. We were soon on the scene : 

 the marauder struggled in hopeless agony, for his back 

 was broken. A shot through the head at a few paces 

 ended his career. 



The young lady had disturbed his lordship taking 

 his siesta on the edge of the reeds ; at first she was 

 under the impression that he was going to spring on 

 her, but the shrill yell she gave, and her pluck in 

 remaining facing him, seemed to have changed his 

 resolution. Boer women, having from childhood up- 

 wards been associated with wild beasts and reptiles, have 

 not the dread of them that our home-bred beauties 

 possess. 



The river is very lovely here, and is almost equally 

 divided into pools and rapids about the size of the 

 Thames at Maidenhead, and nearly uninterruptedly 

 clothed with wood. As a rule the timber does not come 

 to the margin of the water, but a belt of sand twenty 

 or thirty yards wide severs them ; this is particularly 

 noticeable on the inner side of a bend in the river, these 

 banks becoming the favourite resting-place of crocodiles. 



At sunset I found much pleasure in sitting on the 

 brow of the stream watching the opposite sand; being free 

 from bush.it appeared to be selected by the greater portion 

 of the weaker beasts for a drinking-place. First, the 

 guinea-fowls and francolins would make their appear- 

 ance at the edge of the sand, having stealthily crept out 

 from the bush, after taking a good survey up and down 

 to see that no danger lurked near, and being satisfied, 

 they would run across the sand and enter the water to 

 take a hurried wash and drink, the whole manoeuvre not 

 occupyiog a couple of minutes, after which they would 



