308 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
within fifty yards of the rhino, and, with my rifle ready, 
began shouting, trying to keep the just mean as regards 
noise, so as to scare him, and yet not yell so loudly as to 
reach the buffalo if they happened to be near by. At last 
I succeeded, and he trotted sullenly off, tacking and veer¬ 
ing, and not going far. On we went, and in another half- 
hour came on our quarry. I was the first to catch a glimpse 
of the line of bulky black forms, picked out with white where 
the sun glinted on the horn bosses. It was ten o’clock, a 
hot, windless morning on the equator, with the sun shin¬ 
ing from a cloudless sky; yet these buffalo were feeding in 
the open, miles from water or dense cover. They were 
greedily cropping the few tufts of coarse herbage that grew 
among the sparse thorn-bushes, which here were not more 
than two feet high. In many places buffalo are purely 
nocturnal feeders, and do not come into the hot, bare plains 
in the scorching glare of daylight; and our experience with 
this herd illustrates afresh the need of caution in generaliz¬ 
ing about the habits of game. 
We crept toward them on all-fours, having left the por¬ 
ters hidden from sight. At last we were within rather long 
range—a buffalo’s eyesight is good, and cannot be trifled 
with as if he were a rhino or elephant—and cautiously 
scrutinized the herd through our glasses. There were only 
cows and perhaps one or two young bulls with horns no 
bigger than those of cows. I would have liked another good 
bull’s head for myself; but I also wished another cow for 
the museum. Before I could shoot, however, a loud yelling 
was heard from among the porters in our rear; and away 
went the buffalo. Full of wrath, we walked back to in¬ 
quire. We found that one porter had lost his knife, and 
