136 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



John overtook them twelve or fifteen miles off, and came 

 back to camp with his horse laden with bars of lead and 

 the prettiest and most courteous letter from Mr. Webb, who 

 would not hear of my buying lead with ivory, and sent me a 

 bountiful supply and a number of kind words. It was a most 

 generous help, most graciously rendered, and enabled me to 

 enjoy my homeward march. Without it I should have been 

 troubled to feed my followers for 1,400 miles, for I had only a 

 very small reserve. 



These were the only elephants I shot that were not eaten, 

 and I hope some wandering Bushman, vulture led, may have 

 come across even them. I missed Livingstone. He was 

 driven back by fever breaking out amongst his party, and 

 returned on the other side of the river, to which I myself 

 crossed over after a time, but he had then gone by. 



Inspanning one morning whilst here, a shout of ' Ingwe ' 

 from the men, a rush of the dogs, and up jumped a leopard in 

 the midst of us, and made for a large tree, which he climbed. 

 I was beneath it in a minute with a gun, and for half an hour with 

 three or four men searched for him along the branches without 

 avail. At last we gave it up, and went after the waggons, think- 

 ing he must have managed to get away unseen by us. One man 

 however stopped behind for a minute to tie up his bundle, and 

 before we were a hundred yards off the cunning beast raised 

 his head from a bough, came down, and made away too quickly 

 for us to get back, on the man's halloo, in time to shoot him 

 he did wondrously in hiding himself. Leopards were not com- 

 mon thus far in ; they clung to the rocks and hills in and near 

 the colony. I only saw four or five of them, but one performed 

 a cleverish trick. The Kafirs were sitting round their fire under 

 a large tree, when, climbing along an overhanging branch, 

 he dropped into the circle, caught a dog, cleared the ring at a 

 bound, and got safely away. Towards the Colony, where the 

 baboons are plentiful, the leopard preys on them, though, when 

 in large herds, the old dog baboons will frequently drive him 

 off ; their canine teeth are formidable weapons. Most amusing 



