88 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



CHAPTER III 



SECOND EXPEDITION TO SOUTH AFRICA 



BY W. COTTON OSWKI.I. 



MURRAY returned to England. I threw off my ivory at the 

 nearest frontier town, and laying in such fresh supplies as were 

 needed, and buying half a dozen horses to fill up the gaps, was 

 by the middle of April on my way to the Marique River, a 

 small tributary of the Limpopo, intending to shoot down it to 

 its junction, and then follow the main stream as far as I might 

 be able. The game was very numerous, and John was already 

 well on with his frieze of elephant tails round the inside of my 

 waggon. He always cut off the 'tips' from the elephants I 

 shot, as a kind of tally ; and now that we did much of the 

 tracking alone, he was besieged on his return to camp by the 

 Kafirs, to find out how many tails he had, and whether the late 

 owners were fat ! They ran heel the next morning and left 

 men to cut, dry, and despatch the flesh to their respective 

 kraals ; a large number, and all the head men, remaining with me. 

 One morning, before I started, a Kafir came in with a letter 

 fastened in a cleft-stick, from 'a white man shooting on the 

 Limpopo, three days up stream from the junction of the 

 Marique'; it was frotn a Major Frank Vardon, of the 25th 

 Madras N.I., who, hearing I was within a short distance, pro- 

 posed to join parties and shoot together. I had been one 

 whole season and part of another at the work, and I thought 

 that a new comer of whom I knew nothing might not be the 

 most desirable of companions ; he would very likely wish to 



