26 TALES OF A NOMAD. 



" I knelt down and took good aim between his eyes 

 and was pressing the trigger, when the idea entered my 

 mind : ' Supposing the gun should miss fire, or suppos- 

 ing I should fail to kill him dead on the spot, he would 

 rush straight along the path towards me, and seeing me 

 in his way would bite me in half. So I went cautiously 

 backwards, crept round him, approached him from 

 behind and fired at his tail." 



Of course he might as well have whistled at the hippo 

 as have fired at its tail in the hope of killing it. It 

 rushed off to the river, and may be there to-day for all 

 I know to the contrary. This was an instance of Caffre 

 caution, but I have known them to do exceedingly bold 

 things. A Caffre lad of about sixteen came to our 

 camp on one occasion, and begged to be allowed to hunt 

 for us. I was rather loth to accept his aid, but as he 

 was almost tearful in his anxiety to be allowed to carry 

 a gun, I lent him the only gun left in camp, viz., a 

 single-barrelled smooth No. 10 bore. He was delighted, 

 and went away with a small boy who accompanied him. 

 He managed to kill a bufTalo somehow just at sundown, 

 and there being no time to skin it before dark, he 

 encamped beside the carcase. He lit a fire and lay 

 down to sleep. During the night, he was awakened by 

 the boy pulling at his arm. On sitting up he saw by 

 the dim light of the fire that two lions were feeding on 

 the carcase, which was within ten yards of the fire. He 

 quietly made up the fire and compelled the boy, who 

 was quaking with fear, to hold up a lighted torch, so that 

 he could see the fore and back sight of his gun, and 

 sitting down to take a steady shot put a ball through 

 the head of the male lion, killing him stone dead. The 

 lioness gave a roar and sprang away from the carcase, 



