88 LIG GAME SHOOTING 
CHAPTER III 
SECOND EXPEDITION TO SOUTH AFRICA 
By W. CoTron OSWELL 
Morray returned to England. I threw off my ivory at the 
nearest frontier town, and laying in such fresh supplies as were 
needed, and buying half a dozen horses to fill up the gaps, was 
by the middle of April on my way to the Mariqué River, a 
small tributary of the Limpopo, intending to shoot down it to 
its junction, and then follow the main stream as far as I might 
be able. The game was very numerous, and John was already 
well on with his frieze of elephant tails round the inside of my 
waggon. He always cut off the ‘tips’ from the elephants I 
shot, as a kind of tally ; and now that we did much of the 
tracking alone, he was besieged on his return to camp by the 
Kafirs, to find out how many tails he had, and whether the late 
owners were fat! They ran heel the next morning and left 
men. to cut, dry, and despatch the flesh to their respective 
kraals ; a large number, and allthe head men, remaining with me. 
One morning, before I started, a Kafir came in with a letter 
fastened in a cleft-stick, from ‘a white man shooting on the 
Limpopo, three days up stream from the junction of the 
Mariqué’ ; it was from a Major Frank Vardon, of the 25th 
Madras N.I., who, hearing I was within a short distance, pro- 
posed to join parties and shoot together. I had been one 
whole season and part of another at the work, and I thought 
that a new comer of whom I knew nothing might not be the 
most desirable of companions ; he would very likely wish to 
