The Journal of a Sporting Nomad 



station. Here his progress was for a moment 

 barred by a fence which consisted of six or seven 

 strands of barbed wire, but he had treated it as 

 so much cotton, and had evidently charged the 

 obstruction, breaking two strands and bending 

 the upright posts. He had left his mark on the 

 barbs of the wire in the shape of mud and blood. 

 This hurt had upset his equanimity, for he had 

 walked up the small bank that bordered the rail- 

 way track and then up the line until he came to 

 a siding where were three miniature open trucks, 

 the end of which he charged, smashing that part 

 into matchwood. In this effort he had broken 

 off a splinter from one of his tusks, which I 

 picked up when I appeared on the scene shortly 

 afterwards. He had amused himself by chewing 

 portions of the woodwork into a pulp, leaving 

 it in that state scattered around amongst the 

 debris. He seems, after this escapade, to have 

 slid down the steep embankment that was here, 

 and rejoined the river farther up-stream. 



As an Austrian friend of mine, Count Couden- 

 hove, was returning to Beira in a few days' time, 

 we decided to go together. I paid off my boys, 

 gave them the greater part of my outfit, and 

 sent them back to Salisbury. I offered to get 

 them a ride in an empty truck as far as Chimoio, 

 but they seemed to prefer the walk, having no 

 doubt a lively recollection of the way the sparks 

 from the engine had afflicted them on their way 



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