chap. i. BUFFALO. 33 



large, having blacker hair, and more widely-spread horns. 

 Such, indeed, seems to be a general rule when animals of 

 the same species are found both in the forests and in the 

 thorns ; several other instances occurring, among which 

 the Nkonka, or male bush-buck, may especially be noted. 

 A herd of buffalo, or, more correctly speaking, several 

 herds, that exist in a district known as the Umbeka, on 

 the north-east of Zululand, are famed as having a tinge 

 of red in their colour, and as being smaller and more 

 dangerous than any others. This last is a peculiarity 

 that I shall again have occasion to notice with regard 

 to the smaller of two species, or even the smaller variety 

 of a single species, the smallest species of leopard, Hon, 

 rhinoceros, and crocodile, all being the most savage. No 

 two buffaloes, even in the same herd, are ever exactly 

 alike, and I never yet saw two pair of horns of precisely 

 the same shape — a fact that has been noticed by Dr. 

 Schweinfurth with regard to the Central African harte- 

 beest and eland. 



They are not, as I have said, found in any great 

 numbers in the forests, preferring the more open thorns, 

 where better feeding and equally good shelter is com- 

 bined ; but still they do exist, to a greater or less degree, 

 wherever there is cover for them, and I have come across 

 them in the most unlikely spots, as, for instance, in the 

 great forests which cover the top of the Bombo moun- 

 tains. This range, whose name literally means " the 

 bridge of the nose," is a wall-like obstruction which 

 gradually rises from the sea at St. Lucia Bay, and, 

 running about n.n.e., attains to a height of some seven 

 thousand feet, dying away in a number of irregular hills 



c 



