84 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
third or fourth day—the last twenty-four hours without water 
for the cattle. 
This day ought to be marked with a very large though dull- 
coloured stone in my shooting annals. Murray made a long 
détour to the N.E., intending to strike the river lower down 
and follow it up to the encampment. I kept within easy 
distance of the waggons, as I was anxious to see the cattle 
watered and well cared for. I shot two large bull elephants 
and a rhinoceros, and one of the drivers killed a giraffe and a 
quagga. I think we must have been near the river, for men 
were left behind to cut them up and dry the flesh, and I do 
not remember any other water within reach. It was about 
3 P.M. when we drew up on the bank, and I was sitting down 
and enjoying the pleasant sight of the thirsty beasts taking 
their fill, when I heard three shots in quick succession three- 
quarters of a mile down stream. It could only be Murray, for 
there were no guns in the country in those days except our 
own and those of the Boers far away to the eastward, and my 
Kafirs would have told me soon enough had any stray party of 
these been about. Again came shot after shot, and thinking 
Murray was either in trouble or had fallen in with a herd 
of buffalo, the spoor of which was very plentiful, I caught 
one of the ponies, and putting the bit in his mouth, kicked 
him along as fast as he could go in his waterlogged con- 
dition. 
Immediately opposite the sound of the guns the bush was 
so thick I could not get through with the horse ; so, tying him 
to a tree on the outside, I crawled in, and came upon a kind 
of backwater from the main river, very deep, 150 yards long 
by fifty wide, with high banks, especially the one opposite me, 
on which sat the dear old laird blazing away right merrily—his 
after-rider helping him keep up the cannonade by loading one 
of the guns. ‘What is it?’ I shouted. ‘ Look at those beasts,’ he 
replied—dang. ‘There again’—dang. ‘Look!’ hecried. The 
pool was alive with monstrous heads, and though this was the 
first time I had seen the hippopotamus in the flesh—fat, per- 
