136 
AFRICAN HUNTING. 
and lie fell over the dissel boom. Taking advantage 
of his mishap they fell upon him, and while they were 
all struggling together on the ground, White getting 
the worst of it, Mahoutcha seized the after-sjambok, 
and played into them with such terrible good-will 
that they instantly jumped up, and White caught the 
nearest on the under jaw, breaking it, and knocking 
him backwards over a flight of spiked rails. The 
other fled for his life. 
The whole country was entirely depopulated, 
hundreds of wagon loads of green mealies and amo- 
bella all going to waste. We passed heaps of Kaiflr 
traps, pillows, mats, calabashes, pots, sticks, and 
baskets, strewed about, evidently dropped in a hurry. 
14 th [Sunday ).— The whole air was tainted with 
dead bodies for the last twelve miles, which I walked 
against a head wind. They were lying in every pos¬ 
sible attitude along the road, men, women, and 
children of all possible sizes and ages; the warriors 
untouched, with their war-dresses on; but all in a 
dreadful state of decomposition. I was never so glad 
of anything in my hfe as of getting the Tugela 
between me and the dead; as what with the strong 
head wind, and the horrible effluvia, it was quite 
overpowering, and proved eventually too much for the. 
stomachs of even my Kaffirs. For a long time they 
endeavoured, by taking widish circles, to avoid 
treading on or coming very near the dead, being 
very superstitious; but as we neared the Tugela, the 
bodies lay so thick in the road and on each side that 
