40 LARGE GAME. chap. I. 



had rested upon another, and with greater success, for it 

 was left, after a short struggle, standing alone in the 

 water. The herd had almost reached the shore before I 

 had got my next cartridges in, but they were much nearer, 

 offering magnificent shots, and both bullets told loudly, 

 though without visible effect. I had then just, and 

 barely, time to reload before they were within fifteen 

 feet of me, thundering up the banks on which we were, 

 and as I raised my gun I heard a report and saw one 

 drop in its tracks, shot, as we afterwards found, through 

 the brain. My first ball I aimed at the head of a bull 

 on whose chest a white mark showed where he had been 

 already wounded, the second, with the muzzle of the 

 gun almost touching it, into the shoulder of a cow. 

 Neither fell, and knowing that my position, with an 

 empty gun, was one of great danger if any of them 

 chose to turn, I made one bound over the perpendicular 

 bank, up a narrow path in which they had come, and 

 found myself in half a minute safe under the massive 

 roots of a fig-tree from which the water had washed 

 out the soil. Here I loaded, and was soon after joined 

 by the hunter. The first thing we saw that had to be 

 done was to secure the buffalo that had floated down the 

 stream before it reached the still waters where crocodiles 

 were plentiful ; and as some of the natives had already 

 made their appearance on the opposite bank, my hunter, 

 calling to them for assistance, at once plunged in after it, 

 while I, sitting down and taking deliberate aim, tried to 

 finish off the one I had wounded, and which was still 

 standing where the others had left it. It was not more 

 than thirty yards off, with the water covering about half 



