BUFFALOES. 
281 
a more careful selection. While I was panting 
upwards, bemoaning the loss of energy and 
dreading the walk across the plain, which I 
could not now reach until the sun was high, a 
native suddenly emerged from a side-path. 
There are two encounters which I greatly 
dread , — pne is a herd of buffaloes, the other a 
single native ; and I have been forced to give 
up my morning walks on the hills in conse- 
quence. When the former are browsing on an 
open slope, I can make a long detour, and, cling- 
ing by branches and tufts of vegetation, skirt 
the farthest stragglers ; but when I come sud- 
denly upon them pressing along a narrow path, 
their horns clashing and clattering as they race 
and stamp and bellow, I don’t know where to 
turn. If I creep down the slope on one side, 
or scramble up the height on the other, the 
chances are that they scatter, and some take 
the very way I am struggling over, in their 
mad gallop hither and thither. You must re- 
member that I am only a small and very 
feminine woman, and no masculine female with 
top-boots and a fowling-piece. 
But even less willingly would I meet a single 
native in a quiet wood. The Timor men are 
most unreliable. They are inveterate thieves, 
