190 THE DISADVANTAGE OF "CRACKERS." 



a young English lad, born and bred in the colony, and 

 two Kaffirs, all three armed with guns, came quietly up 

 to us. I knew the boy, and he informed me that he was 

 after the elephants, but, hearing our approach, could not 

 make us out ; he thought that he caught a glimpse of 

 something rather red, which was really rny untanned 

 leather breeches, and that he fancied it was a red-buck ; but 

 the glance was so slight, that he could not be quite certain. 

 He consoled me, however, by saying "he should not have 

 fired at me unless he knew that the elephants were a 

 long way off." We had stood listening one to the other 

 for about three minutes, and the bird that flew past had 

 given the alarm to Monyosi. 



How would some of my friends compete in war singly 

 with black men like this ? But fancy one hundred such 

 against perhaps twenty young soldiers inexperienced in the 

 colonial cunning, and laughing contemptuously at the black 

 niggers to whom they are going to give a licking ! Many 

 bleached skulls, that do not require one to have the science 

 of Professor Owen to know that they were once tenanted 

 by a spirit recognized in this world as a white man, might 

 tell what was the result of carelessness, and underrating 

 the enemy, and perhaps a little overrating one's own skill. 



"We joined the party which we had met in the bush, and 

 together followed the spoor. I now witnessed one of the 

 rare cases of downright cowardice in a Kaffir. One of 

 this English lad's Kaffirs was a very good hand after 

 buck, but did not aspire to anything more. As we neared 

 the elephants, and heard their rumbling, this black cur 

 shook as though he had an ague, and said he would not 



