A BUFFALO HUNT BY THE KAMITI 167 



horses and walked along it. Like all such watercourses, it 

 wound in curves. The banks were four or five feet high, 

 the bottom was sometimes dry and sometimes contained 

 reedy pools, while at intervals there were clumps of papy- 

 rus. Heatley went ahead, and just as we had about con- 

 cluded that the buffalo would not come out, he came back 

 to 'tell us that he had caught a glimpse of several, and be- 

 lieved that the main herd was with them. Cuninghame, a 

 veteran hunter and first-class shot, than whom there could be 

 no better man to have with one when after dangerous game, 

 took charge of our further movements. We crept up the 

 watercourse until about opposite the buffalo, which were 

 now lying down. Cuninghame peered cautiously at them, 

 saw there were two or three, and then led us on all-fours 

 toward them. There were patches where the grass was short, 

 and other places where it was three feet high, and after a good 

 deal of cautious crawling we had covered half the distance 

 toward them, when one of them made us out, and several 

 rose from their beds. They were still at least two hundred 

 yards off a long range for heavy rifles; but any closer 

 approach was impossible, and we fired. Both the leading 

 bulls were hit, and at the shots there rose from the grass not 

 half a dozen buffalo, but seventy or eighty, and started at a 

 gallop parallel to the swamp and across our front. In the 

 rear were a number of cows and calves, and I at once sin- 

 gled out a cow and fired. She plunged forward at the shot 

 and turned toward the swamp, going slowly and dead lame, 

 for my bullet had struck the shoulder and had gone into the 

 cavity of the chest. But at this moment our attention was 

 distracted from the wounded cow by the conduct of the 

 herd, which, headed by the wounded bulls, turned in a 

 quarter-circle toward us, and drew up in a phalanx facing 

 us with out-stretched heads. It was not a nice country in 

 which to be charged by the herd, and for a moment things 

 trembled in the balance. There was a perceptible motion 

 of uneasiness among some of our followers. "Stand steady! 

 Don't run!" I called out. "And don't shoot!" called out 



