124 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
night to drink ; in the morning I took up the spoor and shot 
one immediately, but after wounding a second had much 
trouble with him in the thick bush, the horse falling before the 
charging bull, and I only just escaping. Months afterwards, 
on our return from Lake ’Ngami, when there was no further 
object to be gained by opposition, we were encamped at the 
same pool, and were soon surrounded by the children of the 
wilderness, who recounted and acted the story of the elephant 
hunt ; how they had followed and found number two, which 
escaped at the time, and eaten him ; how they had witnessed 
it all as invisible spectators ; and now, turning actors, they en- 
joyed the play vastly: trumpeted like the elephant, fell like 
the horse, and imitated my attack and retreat, and the noise 
of the gun. 
During this journey, when very. hard up for water, I 
offered to sacrifice a pony and ride on in advance of the slow- 
moving waggons, which were to follow on my spoor, on the 
chance of finding what we needed so sorely. John and three 
or four Kafirs accompanied me, and we had travelled I dare 
say twelve miles when I saw a patch of high grass wave as if 
something were passing through it. Thinking it might be a 
lion, and if a lion then water was near, I cantered to the head 
of the ‘ Jheel,’ dismounted, and watched the line of movement. 
It came to the edge, and some living thing broke from it. 
I covered it, and only just in time saw it was a woman running, 
or rather crawling, very fast on all fours. I mounted in an 
instant, and shouting to the Kafirs to follow, I headed her 
and made signs to her to stop. She fell upon her knees, 
and in Sechuana begged me not to kill her. She. had never 
seen horse or white man before, and evidently took me for a 
hippogriff. I calmed her apprehensions, cut the metal buttons 
off my waistcoat, presented them to her, and asked where the 
water was. ‘There is no water,’ she said, ‘I was just making 
something to drink’ (she was mashing a watery tuber in a 
wooden bowl) ‘ when I saw the pitsi (horse).’ Bushmen—she 
was of that people—we knew, lived for months without real 
