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SECOND EXPEDITION TO SOUTH AFRICA 95 
__ I suppose, is all I can reply. We all belong to the same 
- family. When trouble threatens, you shoot very straight, your 
' muscles are rigid and steely for the time ; if you come to grief 
_ the whole of your mind is bent upon getting away, and on 
_ that only. Some men have more of their wits about them 
_ than others, no doubt ; but all pale faces must yield to the 
black skins in this pecticular. A man was cutting long grass 
_ to thatch one of Dr. Livingstone’s outbuildings when he came 
_ upon a buffalo, which charged. The man ran some little 
_ distance, but noting a slight depression on the ground, like a 
_ shallow ditch, threw himself down flat into it, holding on to 
_ the bush and grass with hishands. The points of the buffalo’s 
horns turn in, bowing out the middle—there was, from the 
man’s position, a difficulty in getting the points to bear, and 
before the bull could arrange matters satisfactorily to himself 
nose came close to the Kafir’s body; in an instant he 
had hold of it, and pinched and wrung it sharply. The nose 
‘is the buffalo’s tender spot, and this happy thought of the 
‘native was sufficient to rid him of his assailant. Livingstone 
told me this story. I did not see it enacted, but I believe it ; 
and it is iliustrative of such presence of mind as would hardly 
_ be found in the European—living amongst wild animals and 
_ inheriting from generation to generation the instinctive know- 
ledge of their natures, it would be surprising if the blacks were 
not in such things our superiors. 
__ The buffaloes were in immense herds along the Mariqué 
River. As we were coming home one night rather later than 
usual from hunting, a white rhinoceros with a calf insisted on 
: ing the way. It was bright moonlight, and easy to shoot 
; but the country was full of elephants, and I was very unwill- 
to scare them. Wetried every way to get her to move, but 
‘she would not. We pelted her with pieces of wood, abused 
roundly, and the men threatened her with their assegais, 
to no purpose. At the last, very unwillingly, I was obliged 
fire. She ran a little distance and dropped dead ; but the 
wt of the gun had awakened the whole forest to the left of 
