264 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



On the previous day I had come across a solitary 

 bull in an open rolling sandy plain, destitute of any 

 kind of vegetation but coarse tussocky grass. 

 Owing to the very open nature of the ground in 

 which I found him, this gemsbuck spied me from 

 afar and went off with a very long start. I was, 

 however, very well mounted, and after a long and 

 exciting chase, at length got within shot of and 

 killed him. Whilst racing along in full pursuit of 

 this bull, I had seen in the distance quite a large 

 herd of gemsbucks, and as I knew that there must 

 be some fine heads among them, I had half a mind 

 to take up their tracks later in the day, but gave up 

 the idea, as I only had a sufficient number of 

 Bushmen with me to carry the meat of the animal 

 already shot. 



On arriving at my waggon, I found a party of 

 Matabele Kafirs there who had come to the Makari- 

 kari to collect rock salt, which they find there 

 deposited in layers a couple of inches in thickness. 

 This rock salt is reddish brown in colour, and very 

 impure, containing apparently a great deal of lime. 

 Although most of these Matabele carried guns, 

 they told me they had scarcely seen a head of game 

 since leaving home, and having shot nothing, had 

 consequently had nothing to eat, after they had ex- 

 hausted the small stock of grain with which they 

 had started on their journey, but berries and 

 tortoises, eked out with whatever they had been 

 able to steal from the Bushmen. They certainly 

 looked half starved, and on my presenting them 

 with a hind-leg of the gemsbuck I had just shot, 

 they very speedily devoured it, and then begged 

 me to try and shoot them something on the follow- 

 ing day, that they might lay in a stock of meat for 

 their journey back to Matabeleland. 



I promised to do my best for them, and at day- 

 light the next morning, accompanied by a dozen 



