xv 'ISILOUAN, ISILOUAN!' 279 



to pieces, and cleaned and oiled it just before we left 

 the waggons, but I did not know that he had done 

 anything more than this. It afterwards turned out, 

 however, that he had, as he said, "just touched the 

 detenter " with a fine file, but unfortunately had taken 

 enough off it to throw the mechanism connected with 

 the hair trigger out of order. This, however, I only 

 found out to my sorrow later on. 



About two hours after we had left camp, we 

 emerged from the open forest, with which most 

 of the country was covered, upon a broad open 

 valley, devoid of bush, but covered with a thick 

 growth of yellow grass some four feet high. This 

 open valley was bounded on its further side by 

 a rocky ridge some twenty feet in height, which 

 formed the edge of a level expanse ot country 

 covered with small scattered trees, and a very 

 scanty growth of fine grass, of quite a different 

 character to that growing in the valley below. 

 Down the centre of the open ground ran a small 

 stream of water, a tributary of the Daka river. 

 We had just crossed this stream, and were within 

 fifty yards of the steep ridge that bounded the 

 further side of the valley, when two of our Kafirs, 

 who had been after a honey-bird, and who were 

 coming diagonally towards us through the long 

 grass, and had just reached the stream about one 

 hundred yards below us, suddenly shouted out 

 " Isilouan, isilouan ! " ("Lions, lions!"), and came 

 running towards us. Seizing the eight-bore rifle 

 from the shoulder of the Kafir who was carrying it 

 just behind me, I ran towards them, calling out, 

 " Where are they? Which way have they gone ?" 

 " They jumped out of the bed of the stream," they 

 replied, "and went forward through the grass 

 towards the ridge." 



I did not wait to hear anything more, but ran 

 to the ridge as hard as I could, closely followed 



