580 
MR. OSWELL’S NARROW ESCAPE. Chap. XXVlir. 
wliicli I now melted into bullets. I also spent tlie remainder of 
my handkerchiefs in buying spears for them. My men frequently 
surrounded herds of buffaloes and killed numbers of the calves. 
I, too, exerted myself greatly; but as I am now obliged to shoot 
with the left arm I am a bad shot, and this, with the lightness of 
the bullets, made me very unsuccessful. The more the hunger, 
the less my success, invariably. 
I may here add an adventure mth an elephant of one wlio has 
had more narrow escapes than any man hving, but whose modesty 
has always prevented him from pubKshing anything about himself. 
When we were on the baulks of the Zouga in 1850, Mr. Oswell 
pursued one of these animals into the dense, thick, thorny bushes 
met with on the margin of that river, and to which the elephant 
usually flees for safety. He followed tlmough a narrow pathway, 
by lifting up some of the branches and forcing his way tlirough 
the rest; but when he had just got over tliis chfficulty, he saw the 
elephant, whose tail he had but got ghmpses of before, now rush¬ 
ing towards him. There was then no time to lift up branches, so 
he tried to force the horse through them. He could not effect a 
passage; and, as there was but an instant between the attempt 
and failure, the hunter tried to dismount, but in doing this one 
foot was caught by a branch, and the spm’ drawn along the ani¬ 
mal’s flank; this made liim spring away and tlirow the rider on 
the ground with his face to the elephant, wliich, being in full 
chase, still went on. Mr. Oswell saw the huge fore foot about 
to descend on his legs, parted them, and drew m his breath as if 
to resist the pressure of the other foot, wliich he expected would 
next descend on his body. He saw the whole length of the under 
part of the enormous brute pass over him; the horse got away 
safely. I have heard of but one other authentic instance in wliich 
an elephant went over a man without injmy, and, for any one who 
knows the nature of the bush in wliich this occmTed, the very 
thought of an encounter in it with such a foe is appalling. As 
the thorns are placed in pairs on opposite sides of the branches, and 
these turn round on being pressed against, one pair brings the 
other exactly mto the position in which it must pierce the intruder. 
They cut hke knives. Horses dread tliis bush extremely : indeed, 
most of them refuse to face its thorns. 
On reaching Mburuma’s village, liis brother came to meet us. 
