56 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



soaking before cooking, and loses much of its flavour, but it 

 holds body and soul together. 



Leaving the valley and rocky hills of the Ba-Katla, we 

 moved slowly onwards towards the Ba-Wangketsi ; before reach- 

 ing them, an event occurred which coloured my whole African 

 life, and will colour my life as long as I live. It is no story 

 of big game, and perhaps ought not to find a place in these 

 pages ; but it is so bound up with all my shooting, all my plea- 

 sure in Africa, that I would ask to be forgiven for telling it. I 

 should feel a traitor to the memory of a dead friend if I did not. 



We were trekking through some low sand-hills covered 

 with scrub, when three lions crossed about fifty yards ahead of 

 the oxen. Snatching up a gun, I jumped from the waggon, 

 calling upon someone to follow me with a heavy rifle which 

 was always kept loaded as a reserve battery. I pressed so 

 closely on the leisurely retreating trio that the largest stopped 

 short. I squatted, intending to take his shoulder as he turned, 

 looked round for my second gun, and heard the bearer, who 

 was close to me, whisper in Dutch, ' You can get nearer by 

 the ant-hill.' The move lost me the lion, as he broke away 

 after his companions ; and then for the first time I took 

 notice of the cool, tall, handsome lad who had offered me 

 advice, and recognised in him at once the stuff to make a 

 henchman of. From that day forth he was my right-hand 

 man in the field, and never failed me. 



John Thomas was an Africander, born at the Cape, of 

 parents probably slaves ; but as a grand specimen of man- 

 hood, good nature, faithfulness, and cheerful endurance, I 

 never met his equal, white or black. Plucky to a fault, he was 

 the least quarrelsome of men, the life and light of our camp 

 fires, and the pet of the Kafirs, who seemed at once to under- 

 stand his quiet unpretending nature, and always made their 

 requests to me through 'bono Johnny.' To tell his good 

 deeds through a five years' wandering would very often be to 

 show up my own faults ; let it be enough to say that he was a 

 perfect servant to a very imperfect master, who, now that his 



