542 MR. OSWEl,l/S NARROW ESCAPE. 



to my men, who had no more love for the sport than myself, 

 as they never engaged in it, except when forced by hunger. 



Some of them gave me a hint to melt down my plate, 

 by asking if it were not lead. I had two pewter plates 

 and a piece of zinc, which I now melted into bullets. I 

 also spent the remainder of my handkerchiefs in buying 

 spears for them. My men frequently surrounded herds 

 of buffaloes and killed numbers of the calves. I, too, 

 exerted myself greatly ; but as I am now obliged to shoot 

 with the left arm I am a bad shot, and this, with the 

 lightness of the bullets, made me very unsuccessful. The 

 more the hunger, the less my success, invariably. 



I may here add an adventure with an elephant of one 

 who has had more narrow escapes than any man living, 

 but whose modesty has always prevented him from 

 publishing anything about himself. When we were on 

 the banks of the Zouga in 1S50, Mr. Oswell pursued one 

 of these animals into the dense, thick, thorny bushes 

 met with on the margin of that river, and to which the 

 elephant usually flees for safety. He followed through 

 a narrow pathway, by lifting up some of the branches 

 and forcing his way through the rest ; but when he had 

 just got over this difnculty, he saw the elephant, whose 

 tail he had but got glimpses of before, now rushing towards 

 him. There was then no time to lift up branches, so 

 he tried to force the horse through them. He could not 

 effect a passage ; and, as there was but an instant between 

 the attempt and failure, the hunter tried to dismount, 

 but in doing this one foot was caught by a branch, and 

 the spur drawn along the animal's flank ; this made him 

 spring away and throw the rider on the ground with his 

 face to the elephant, which, being in full chase, still went 

 on. Mr. Oswell saw the huge fore foot about to descend 

 on his legs, parted them, and drew in his breath as if to 

 resist the pressure of the other foot, which he expected 

 would next descend on his body. He saw the whole 

 length of the under part of the enormous brute pass over 

 him ; the horse got away safely. I have heard of but 

 one other authentic instance in which an elephant went 

 over a man without injury, and, for any one who knows 

 the nature of the bush in which this occurred, the very 

 thought of an encounter in it with such a foe is appalling. 

 As the thorns are placed in pairs on opposite sides of the 

 branches, and these turn round on being pressed against, 



