Notes on South African Hunting. 
43 
Two Stories of Death. 
Just before we reached the water I was weak 
enough to drive on my horse by touching him 
with the butt of my rifle. I suppose I must 
have hit a bone, for suddenly the stock broke 
off at the small, and we were left with nothing 
but a shot gun. This was a serious matter, as 
lions are numerous about there. The three 
travellers before us had all lost some cattle or 
horses by lion, so, from a non-sporting point of 
view, we were verj^ lucky in not coming across 
any at close quarters. When we had given 
our horses water we went and lay down under 
a tree, and felt as though we had been trans¬ 
ferred from the very depths of Hades to an 
earthly paradise—for we knew we had lots of 
water. So we slept near there that night, and 
early on the morning of June 25th we arrived 
at Pondamatenga, having one teaspoonful of 
cocoa left. 
At this place—which we found to consist of 
about a dozen huts on the top of a rise—we 
expected to find Mr. Westbeach’s store, from 
which we hoped to get supplies and thence go 
on to the Falls about sixty miles distant. To 
our horror, however, we found that the store 
