MY FIVE BUFFALOES. 33 



There was a sort of gully on the slope of the moun- 

 tain. It was shaped almost like a triangle, or like the 

 letter V inverted, that is to say with its apex upwards. 

 This gully was clothed with bush. In the plain, close 

 to the base of the gully, were a fine troop of perhaps 

 200 buffaloes. Some of them were feeding and some 

 lying down. 



On the mountain side above the apex of the gully 

 was a second troop, and considerably higher on the 

 mountain was a third troop. 



I now regretted that C had parted from me, and 



sent back a runner in hopes that he might catch a view 

 of him and recall him. I waited for quite twenty 



minutes, and as C did not come up I deemed it 



advisable to go on and do a stalk, as at any moment the 

 buffaloes might take it into their heads to move. 



They were very fairly stalkable, and I managed to 

 get within eighty yards without much trouble. There 

 was a very good bull standing up and slightly raking 

 away from me, at a distance of about a hundred yards. 

 I covered him carefully, intending my bullet to enter just 

 before the last rib on his right side and travel forward 

 to his left shoulder, but I suppose I must have made a 

 mess of it, for though he was hard hit he went off at 

 once, and pounded along as though he had only re- 

 ceived a flea bite. The whole troop sprang to their 

 legs and rushed off, making a great rumbling and stir- 

 ring up a cloud of dust. They swept round to the 

 right with a view of gaining the open plain, and I got 

 a nice left barrel at a big cow that was galloping last. 

 The ball told on her hide, and she immediately lifted 

 her foreleg, whereby I knew her shoulder was broken. 

 She at once swerved off and left the troop, but as I was 





