XVI 
EN ROUTE FOR EL BO GO I 
383 
had had no meat for nearly ten days ; but she came along 
diagonally in our direction, as it were to cut us off, though 
she was evidently quite unconscious of our presence. It shows 
how blind these creatures are, that she never saw the caravan 
with its row of gleaming white tusks marching right across her 
right front. 
When near meeting her, the men put down their loads, 
and some bolted for shelter in a little gully, while I took 
my rifle and sat on a slight prominence to await my chance, 
determined, since providence had sent a supply of meat into 
our very hands, to take advantage of it, notwithstanding that 
it was still a long march to our camping-place for the day. 
When she got within about a hundred yards or less she 
seemed to see me. Probably my rifle-barrel glinted in the 
sun, which had just topped the hills. She turned nearly 
facing me, and stood with her head up, trying to make me 
out, giving me the opportunity to plant a .303 bullet at the 
root of the neck. On receiving it she turned and galloped 
perhaps two hundred yards ; but I could see by her laboured 
action, and the way she threw up her forelegs, that she had 
got enough. Then she stood and tottered about, lifting her 
forelegs out straight in front of her with a peculiar dancing 
action, and fell over dead. I wanted to let the calf go, but, as 
usual, it would not, and the men begged for its meat; so, as 
I wanted them to get a good feast after their hard work and 
short rations, I let it have a bullet just in front of the point 
of its shoulder, as it stood diagonally head on to me, and it 
shared its mother’s fate after running some hundred yards 
from her. 
The cow was fat, and the men cut up the meat in high 
glee and piled it on to their already well-laden shoulders, 
or heads. I waited for them nearly two hours before I could 
get them to leave the carcases ; and it was wonderful how 
little there was then left but hide and bones. The donkey- 
men, who were sometimes out of it when anything was shot 
