SECOND EXPEDITION TO SOUTH AFRICA 95 



I suppose, is all I can reply. We all belong to the same 

 family. When trouble threatens, you shoot very straight, your 

 muscles are rigid and steely for the time ; if you come to grief 

 the whole of your mind is bent upon getting away, and on 

 that only. Some men have more of their wits about them 

 than others, no doubt ; but all pale faces must yield to the 

 black skins in this particular. A man was cutting long grass 

 to thatch one of Dr. Livingstone's outbuildings when he came 

 upon a buffalo, which charged. The man ran some little 

 distance, but noting a slight depression on the ground, like a 

 shallow ditch, threw himself down flat into it, holding on to 

 the bush and grass with his hands. The points of the buffalo's 

 horns turn in, bowing out the middle there was, from the 

 man's position, a difficulty in getting the points to bear, and 

 before the bull could arrange matters satisfactorily to himself 

 his nose came close to the Kafir's body ; in an instant he 

 had hold of it, and pinched and wrung it sharply. The nose 

 is the buffalo's tender spot, and this happy thought of the 

 native was sufficient to rid him of his assailant. Livingstone 

 told me this story. I did not see it enacted, but I believe it ; 

 and it is illustrative of such presence of mind as would hardly 

 be found in the European living amongst wild animals and 

 inheriting from generation to generation the instinctive know- 

 ledge of their natures, it would be surprising if the blacks were 

 not in such things our superiors. 



The buffaloes were in immense herds along the Marique 

 River. As we were coming home one night rather later than 

 usual from hunting, a white rhinoceros with a calf insisted on 

 stopping the way. It was bright moonlight, and easy to shoot 

 her ; but the country was full of elephants, and I was very unwill- 

 ing to scare them. We tried every way to get her to move, but 

 no, she would not. We pelted her with pieces of wood, abused 

 her roundly, and the men threatened her with their assegais, 

 all to no purpose. At the last, very unwillingly, I was obliged 

 to fire. She ran a little distance and dropped dead ; but the 

 report of the gun had awakened the whole forest to the left of 



