ADVENTURE WITH BUtft'XLO' 101 



charged, and was upon him before he had time even 

 to lift his rifle. Tyrer dropped the latter, and, with 

 the strength of desperation, grasped the horns of the 

 monster close to their tips. 



Then began a terrible wrestling match. The buffalo 

 was exceptionally large ; probably it was old and corre- 

 spondingly stiff, for on no other ground can one account 

 for Tyrer having been able to save his life. Gross and 

 unwieldy as it looks, the buffalo in its prime is as 

 active as a cat. But Tyrer 's antagonist was apparently 

 unable to bend its neck and get its head beneath its 

 chest, so Tyrer was for a time able to hold on. His 

 native bearer had dropped the spare gun and climbed 

 into a tree. 



At length Tyrer was shaken off and flung in a heap 

 on the ground. In an instant the buffalo picked him 

 up on one of its horns, flung him into the air, and 

 rushed away. The result to poor Tyrer was a terrible 

 injury one which I do not care to describe. Some 

 weeks later the injured man was carried past our camp 

 on a litter. He was afterwards conveyed to Natal and 

 thence to Europe, where a skilful operation set him 

 right." 



An amusing account of the methods of hunting the 

 buffalo in the Kowie Bush (Cape Colony) is given by 

 Mr. Henry Melladew in his reminiscences of sport and 

 travel. 1 He says : "My gun-carrier, a woolly-headed 

 kaffir picked up on the road, whose uncovered locks 

 often had to be disentangled from the thorny bushes, 

 was arrayed in an old sack with holes for arms and neck, 

 and trousers so wonderfully patched that to tell original 

 stuff from new additions was simply impossible. He 

 1 See Bibliography, 14. 



