330 MISSED WITH BOTH BARRELS. 



presence, and caused the animal to suddenly lift his head 

 and look about him. Fearing lest he might spring to his 

 feet and disappear over the edge of the slope before I 

 should have time to get my aim on him, I foolishly, and 

 against Puddoo's advice, fired without waiting, as I certainly 

 ought to have done, until he rose. Starting to his feet, he 

 stood for a second broadside on ; but as I was covering his 

 shoulder for a second shot, he turned sharp round and 

 dashed off downwards, just as I pressed the trigger, and 

 was out of sight in an instant. Eheu mihi ! I had missed 

 him clean w^ith both barrels ! Words cannot express my 

 feelings as I watched him going away after he reappeared. 

 Puddoo, however, expressed his sentiments at the time 

 pretty freely in his native dialect ; and could I have under- 

 stood what he was saying, I might doubtless have heard 

 some rather uncomplimentary remarks respecting my duffer- 

 like performance. We followed the animal's tracks for a 

 loiig way, on the slight chance of the first bullet having hit 

 him with a ricochet, as we noticed it had knocked up the 

 dust on our side of him, but not a drop of blood could we 

 find ; so we sorrowfully turned our steps campwards. How 

 I imprecated the cutting wind as we trudged wearily over 

 the six long miles of flat ground between the Lai Daka and 

 our camp. As we skirted along the base of the Dukka 

 hills, we saw another big flock of Oves Ammon away up on 

 the sloping heights to our left ; but we were both of us too 

 done up and down-hearted to think of going after them that 

 evening, even had there been time. 



So hard was the frost here at night in the month of 

 June, that the stream close to our camp, which we had 

 forded nearly knee-deep the evening before, was until mid- 

 day quite' dry. Nothing was for the time left of it but a 

 hollow crust of ice, below which the water had ceased to 

 flow. Having to depend on this stream for water, we had, 

 whilst here, to collect a sufficient supply overnight to last 

 until it began to flow again next day at noon. It can 



