198 
AFRICAN HUNTING. 
packed on Croppy, and rode back for the wagons, 
luckily having a little moon and the dry bed of a 
river to guide us by. John first saw them — four 
bulls, in company with a lot of quaggas. He beck¬ 
oned to me, and we gave chase. I rode hard, and 
wide of them, John directly in their wake; and as 
they stopped to look back at him, I jumped off. He 
fired and missed ; and as they bounded from his shot 
I hit the last through the hind quarters, and dropped 
him, to my intense joy. We had a capital lunch 
from some wild fruit, about three times the size of 
an orange, called a clapper. It has a hard shell out¬ 
side, which you must batter against a tree to crack 
or break. 
I find that we are considerably farther north 
than I thought—somewhere about the same latitude 
as Sofala, I think — but can gain no information 
from the Kaffirs, who won’t say how far it is from 
the sea or the Portuguese settlement, or give us 
any information at all, either through fear or ig¬ 
norance. We are all in good health, only a little 
impatient to see elephants. 
Nov. 1st [Sunday ).—I have just ‘boned’ part of an 
old quill I saw in a Kaffir’s ear for ornament. I am 
writing my journal with vinegar and gunpowder, but 
it is poor stuff. 
We are anxiously waiting the return of the mes¬ 
sengers sent to Mosilikatse, and are at present kept 
in a kind of quarantine. A son of Impugan (fly), 
Mosilikatse’s chief captain, with some twenty follow- 
