64 BIG CAM/-: SHOOTING 



made fast to the leathern rope, or 'trek tow,' by which they draw 

 the waggon, each pair there were five to each waggon to their 

 own yoke in the order they worked in the team, so that they 

 were ready and in right position for inspanning in the morning. 

 We were lying on this occasion by a large Wangketsi village, 

 and the cattle had been kraaled rather to prevent them getting 

 mixed with those of the Wangketsi, as they were taken out to 

 graze at sunrise, than from any apprehension of an attack. 

 The three waggons were drawn up as usual on one side of the 

 enclosure, and the Kafirs were by their fires on the other. I 

 was asleep, but was roused by shouts, the discharge of a 

 musket, and the sudden rush of our pack of dogs. I found a 

 lion had sprung over a weak place in the thorn fence on to the 

 back of an ox, and, scared by the shouting, had jumped back 

 again the same way. According to tradition I know the ox 

 ought to have been in his mouth, but it wasn't. A lion will 

 drag an ox by the nape of its neck anywhere, but he can't 

 carry it, much less jump a 6-foot hedge with it in his jaws. 

 Tt was quite dark, but by the gleam of the fires the men, 

 aroused by the panic of the oxen, caught sight of him, and 

 one of the Hottentot drivers had taken a flying shot. The 

 dogs pressed hard upon him ; directly he gained the cover he 

 stood to bay. I suppose the poor things got hampered in the 

 bush, for presently two crawled up to us mangled and dying. 

 The hubbub went on for some minutes, and then the lion, 

 frightened probably by the firing and yelling -we could give 

 no other aid to our allies broke bay, and ten dogs returned 

 exclusive of the two that had come in to die ; two were 

 still missing one of them a brindled bull terrier, which we all 

 knew must one day come to grief, for he was a most reckless, 

 determined brute, game to go in to anything. A few days 

 before, feeling offended at a puff adder the worst of the Cape 

 snakes hissing at him, he had seized it, and notwithstanding 

 the snake striking him on the head with its fangs, had stuck 

 to and killed it. His head swelled to an immense size, but 

 he pulled through and recovered. With day we went to the 



