32 MATABELE LAND. 
claiming to Hendrik that I thought a Hon must be 
the cause, locked up my medicine chest, from which 
I was taking medicine for Hendrik, and seized my 
gun. Hendrik followed me, and we both ran to the 
river. As we peered over the bank, there we saw 
the ox, the largest and fattest in my span, lying in 
the grass at the bottom of the bank with a lion 
tearing him. He was only a few yards below me, 
and before I could distinguish the lion properly as 
it lay upon his prostrate form, the brute leapt off 
the ox and retreated across the river. I fired as he 
ran, and hit him hard, for he rolled over, and I ought 
to have given him the second barrel at once, but 
thinking him mortally wounded, I hesitated a 
moment, and in the next he had disappeared in the 
dry reeds. I did not like to follow him at once, and 
Hendrik would not accompany me, but tried to dis- 
suade me from following him at all. However, m 
about half-an-hour I went in search of the brute, 
but never found it, and do not know what became 
of it.^ 
" I have yet been brought very little into contact 
with wild beasts, and have had few stirring incidents, 
but I have been pretty fully employed one way or 
another, and continue to persevere in my journey. 
I found on reaching here that it was too late to go 
to the Victoria Falls without risk of sickness, in 
^ The body of the dead lion was found soon afterwards by some 
natives— for the shot had proved fatal— and the skin taken by them to 
the Tati settlement. The ox had sustained so severe an injury that 
he had to be shot the following morning. 
