Hunting Buffalo 67 



following, when we saw a lion stalking my one span 

 of oxen. I jumped off, my boy hastily handing me 

 my rifle, I bowled him over, but he was not dead 

 and the noise he made started the oxen on the 

 stampede again, and gave us trouble, so I did not get 

 him. This was in broad daylight, so he must have 

 been very hungry. 



Another time I was walking up a bushy hollow 

 looking for reitbok. I was stalking one when Ben 

 Holder, my Welsh wagon driver, cracked his whip 

 towards me which annoyed me, as I lost my buck. 

 He kept on shouting and came running towards me 

 with a rifle and pointing behind me. I looked, and 

 there was a huge, black-maned lion standing behind 

 the stem of a tree and looking round the side at me. 

 He did not expose more than half his ugly face, so, 

 fearing he would bolt when he saw Holder coming, I 

 aimed at his eye but struck the tree in front of him, 

 sending the bark into his face, and the way he bolted, 

 all confused, was too funny. Holder said that the 

 brute had been stalking me for a mile, and that was 

 why he shouted, and at last came up to me as I would 

 not take heed of him. The Blood River from the 

 u Lun's Klip " to old Venter's was always a bad 

 gtretch for lions. 



