THE LAST SEFARI 427 



would have been true. The poor beast did not even see 

 where he was going, and rushed aimlessly forward in his 

 death struggle. He came very fast to within about twenty 

 yards of the knoll where I sat. Whether he saw me then 

 or no, I cannot say; anyway, he turned a little to one side, 

 as scores of other rhino that I stalked close up to have 

 done, and passing quite near, collapsed, squeaking loudly, 

 on the very edge of the donga I had just scrambled through. 



Now in all this there is nothing in the least unusual 

 and I have only entered into these details on account of 

 what follows, for here begins the really interesting part of 

 my story. 



As I turned back to look at my rhino and measure him, 

 I saw my Wakamba tracker, who had that morning proved 

 himself an unusually good man at his work, standing but 

 a few yards away from me, on the other side of the donga 

 I had crossed, and making silent, frantic signs for me to 

 come to him. After the Wakamba method, his arms were 

 stretched forward and downward while he opened and 

 closed rapidly his hands. 



Brownie and I at once saw something serious was up, 

 though what it was neither of us could imagine. We 

 ran down the donga's edge to a place where we could cross, 

 as the sides sloped and the passage was easy, and came up 

 alongside Gallinero, the Wakamba. His eyes were pop- 

 ping out of his head as he pointed into the black depths of 

 the donga, on whose very edge we now stood, and whis- 

 pered M'Bogo (buffalo). It seemed absurdly impos- 

 sible. Here the narrow gulf was quite thirty feet deep, 

 and not only densely packed with tangle but quite rilled up 

 and overshadowed by thickly growing thorn trees and trail- 

 ing plants that roofed it over, shutting out all light. It 

 didn't seem possible that a buffalo should be down there. 

 Brownie and I had lowered ourselves down into it, a few 

 yards from this very spot. I had shot off my heavy rifle 



