LATER VISITS TO SOUTH AFRICA 121 



reached the place where my hat had been torn off by the tree, 



and I turned round to tell the Kafirs that he must be hard by, 



when an angry growl to my left and then the shriek of a 



man told me that something had gone wrong. Jumping off 



my pony, I ran into the scrub, guided by the sound. I had 



hardly got fifty yards when, bursting through a thicket in 



front of me, a man, covered with blood, fell at my feet, crying 



out that he was killed by the lion, and at the same instant I 



caught sight of the beast close up on three legs, his mane as if 



electrified into an Elizabethan collar, with the Kafir's dog in his 



mouth. As his head came clear of the bush I put a ball through 



it, and he dropped dead by the native's foot. I looked to the 



yelling victim, and found he was terribly bitten in thigh and 



arm ; so, tearing my shirt into strips, I bound him up as well 



as I could, never expecting him to live, for large surfaces were 



mangled, and I had to replace much a good deal at hazard. 



As I finished the waggons came up, and, lifting the wounded 



man on a blanket into one of them, I took him home, made 



him over to his wife, gave her a handful of beads and a yard 



or two of brass wire to purchase food whilst he was laid up, 



summoned the chief, said I was very sorry an accident should 



have happened to one of his men, received his assurance that 



it was not of the slightest consequence, especially as I had 



killed the lion, and then, as there was no water for the oxen, 



I moved on. In seven weeks I returned to this village. 



The first to meet and welcome me was my wounded friend, 



quite well and sound, and about to start on a journey. He 



brought back the blanket on which we had carried him I had 



left it at his hut cleanly washed ; and when I told him to keep it 



his joy was so great that I think he would have had the other 



leg bitten for a like reward. The recuperative power of the 



telling us the whereabouts of a hard-hit ambushed buffalo in this illustration 

 the dog in the lion's mouth was the Kafir's, and the other two were the best I 

 ever had (the likenesses are admirable). I have known them hold a lion at 

 bay for nearly an hour, the larger one heading him continually, and the little 

 rough Skye-looking fellow running in at intervals, nipping him in the rear, and 

 then scuttling off at full speed. 



