342 THE GREAT THIRST LAND. 



Approaching the struggling victim, its comrades 

 fled. I would here have delivered a final shot, hut my 

 attendants were hefore me, and buried their assegais in 

 its marvellously beautiful flanks ; but this attack seemed 

 to produce new vitality, for the zebra rose, rushed 

 headlong with open mouth at me which charge I 

 avoided by springing behind a tree and disappeared 

 into the forest. For two hours my attendants followed 

 her spoor; at length we overtook the victim, sick in 

 body, and powerless to go farther. A second shot 

 brought her down, a mass of inanimate matter. It was 

 cruel work from beginning to end, and, gentle reader, 

 believe me, I was unwillingly the assassin. 



The vultures swooped down from their home in the 

 distant skies ; soon every tree was loaded with them, 

 and I felt I had done an evil deed when I had fired the 

 shot that was to provide these foul feeders with a meal. 



By breakfast- time I was home, spent an idle day 

 about camp, and at three in the afternoon was ready 

 to get into the saddle. I did not wish to kill game, 

 but to see it. Crossing an adjoining watercourse, we 

 entered a broad velt : all the dogs were with me, and 

 evidently anxious for a run. Little Forty, an abbre- 

 viation for Portobello in Scotland, where she had been 

 born a present from the sincere, earnest missionary of 

 Bamanwatto barked and otherwise expressed her plea- 

 sure, within dangerous proximity of Ruby's fore-feet. The 

 stein-buck and the diker-buck broke from tl^eir retreats, 

 and scampered off on fleet limbs to sanctuaries where 

 they would be safe from further disturbance, and the 

 dogs heeded them not, for they were too swift of foot. 



The plain that we were traversing now was very flat 

 and smooth, with but a sparse covering of the most 



