LATER VISITS TO SOUTH AFRICA 133 
_ stone’s station ; but the interview was a short one, as I was 
-inspanned and on the move. Next morning I found all his 
_men, they were Ba-Quaina and knew me, had followed my 
_ waggons, and upon my questioning them they said they really 
_ could not stay with that white man, as he starved them. They 
_had found him elephants two or three times, but he never 
_ killed any ; he only rode after their tails, expecting them _to 
- fall off. Of course I insisted on their going back, and shot a 
_thinoceros on their promise of doing so, just for the present 
distress. Here was a country swarming with animals, a man 
with guns and ammunition in abundance, and yet he couldn’t 
__ ‘keep his camp.’ I would not blame him for that ; but why 
Dm he not give up at once when he discovered, as he must 
_ soon haye done, his utter incapacity? My friend Vardon had 
ecviewed him before he started, at-the Cape, I afterwards 
__ learnt, and asked him what he had come out for. ‘To shoot 
a lion,’ he replied. ‘Was that all?’ he was asked ; and he 
Teplied, ‘Yes ; if he did that he should be quite content.’ 
_ You'd bettér have given 200/. and shot the one at the Zoo; 
_ it would have been cheaper, less trouble, and less dangerous 
too.’ Poor lad ! he picked up another mate and started on 
another journey, goodness knows what for ; and on my second 
return from the Zouga we found his skull with a bullet-hole 
through it, and some small articles of dress, near an old camp- 
fire two or three marches only from where we first met. The 
hyenas had dragged away the rest of the bones. Rightly or 
wrongly, his death was attributed to his companion, and strangely 
| enough this man, subsequently joining himself to an expedition, 
| 
| 
met a similar fate himself.. I never could get full particulars 
of this sad story. 
The way in which, according to the Kafirs, the native dogs 
worked the alligators on this narrow Zouga River amused us. 
Three or four of them wished to cross, either for better fare, 
or to see their friends on the other side ; but, though alligator 
| _is very partial to dog, dog is not so nee of alligator. As- 
_sembling on the banks, they would run, barking violently, a 
