POSTSCRIPT. 235 



At two o'clock we started to look for the bull. It was a long hot climb to the top of 

 the hill, and I was slowly walking up the last few yards of the ascent, when one of the men 

 behind me whistled, and, on looking up, there was a bull standing on a rock just above me, 

 not seventy yards off. He gave me plenty of time for a steady shot, on receiving which he 

 rushed down the hill in front of me, followed by a much larger, jet-black bull. I ran after 

 them and saw the smaller bull walking slowly along, evidently very sick, while the big 

 fellow seemed to be waiting for his companion. I fired my second barrel at the big one, 

 and then, reloading, fired right and left at the pair. A dip in the ground now concealed 

 them for a few moments, but on again reloading and running forward I found the old bull 

 lying dead, and the other hardly able to limp along. 



As wounded beasts always carry off most lead, this bull took two or three more shots 

 before he died, and received more bullets than any bull that I killed, although he was 

 certainly the smallest. 



His companion was about the same size as the first bull that I shot ; the other two 

 bulls were both rather younger. 



I saw nothing the following morning, but, in the afternoon I again went out. We had 

 walked a considerable distance without finding even a fresh track, and were following the crest 

 of a long level ridge, nearly devoid of cover, when I heard a rustling in a patch of tall dry 

 grass a few paces to our left. I thought that it was probably caused by a deer, but a few 

 moments afterwards I saw a solitary bull trotting off, out of shot. We watched him as he 

 crossed a wide valley, and disappeared over the opposite hill, when we started in pursuit. 

 Arrived at the place where the bull was last seen, we took up his tracks and followed them 

 down into another valley in which there was a dense bamboo covert. There was no time 

 for systematic tracking, so, having ascertained the direction that the bull had taken, we made 

 a wide cast ahead, in hopes that we might somewhere intercept him. We were not 

 disappointed : after walking for about an hour we saw him crossing a ravine not more than 

 four hundred yards from us. He was moving slowly, and had apparently got over his alarm, 

 for on reaching the top of the opposite bank he began to saunter about and crop the branches 

 of the trees. Waiting till he was out of sight, I hurried across, and on looking over the 

 edge of the ravine I saw the bull standing within seventy yards. He loomed rather 

 indistinctly in the shade of the bamboos, and the stem of a small tree covered the vital spot 

 behind the shoulder, so I had to take him rather farther forward than I liked, and fired at 

 his neck. He turned round and crashed through the bamboos into the ravine beyond, 

 down which I quickly tracked him and soon found plenty of blood. A little farther on 

 frothy pools showed that he was desperately wounded, and although he had strength to 

 cross another ravine and ascend the opposite bank, I found him standing not four hundred 

 yards from where he was first fired at. He could not have gone much farther, having 

 been shot through the throat, but I had to fire three more shots before I finally secured 

 him. Although a solitary bull he was not a very old one, and his horns, though massive, 

 were still perfect at the tips : they measured a little more than those of my first bull. 



As I was anxious to preserve the heads and skins properly, and knew that they would 



