212 ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



loes were evidently making for some strong retreat. I^ 

 however, managed with much difficulty to hold them 

 in view, following as hest I could through thorny thick- 

 ets. Isaac rode some hundred yards behind, and kept 

 shouting to me to drop the pursuit, or I should be kill- 

 ed. At last the buffaloes suddenly pulled up, and stood 

 at bay in a thicket within twenty yards of me. Spring- 

 ing from my horse, I hastily loaded my two-grooved 

 rifle, which I had scarcely completed when Isaac rode 

 up and inquired what had become of the buffaloes, lit- 

 tle dreaming that they were standing within twenty 

 yards of him. I answered by pointing my rifle across 

 his horse's nose, and letting fly sharp right and left at 

 the two buffaloes. A headlong charge, accompanied 

 by a muffled roar, was the result. In an instant I was 

 round a clump of tangled thorn-threes ; but Isaac, by 

 the violence of his efforts to get his horse in motion, 

 lost his balance, and at the same instant, his girths giv- 

 ing way, himself, his saddle, and big Dutch rifle, all 

 came to the ground together, with a heavy crash, right 

 in the path of the infuriated buff'aloes. Two of the 

 dogs, which had fortunately that moment joined us, met 

 them in their charge, and, by diverting their attention, 

 probably saved Isaac from instant destruction. The 

 buffaloes now took up another position in an adjoining 

 thicket. They were both badly wounded, blotches and 

 pools of blood marking the ground where they had stood. 

 The dogs rendered me assistance by taking up their at- 

 tention, and in a few minutes these two noble bulls 

 breathed their last beneath the shade of a mimosa 

 grove. Each of them, in dying, repeatedly uttered a 

 very striking, lew, deep moan. This I subsequently 

 ascertained the buffalo invariably utters when in the 

 act of expiring. 



