108 
SPORT AND WAR. 
CHAP. XIV. 
alluded to immediately jumped from their horses, to 
make a standing fight of it; hut, strange to say, the 
remainder rode away, and these three men were sur¬ 
rounded by the Kafirs before they could remount. They, 
however, made the best fight they could, and retired on 
foot towards the camp they had left, until they were 
overpowered and killed. It is not known what number 
of Kafirs fell, as the savages carry off their unstiffened 
dead and wounded. I say unstiffened dead, because the 
Kafirs will not touch a really dead body—that is to 
say, one that has become rigid. So long as the body is 
warm and the limbs supple they have no dread; but 
when the body is once cold they will not touch it. 
For this reason the sick are often carried out of their 
huts long before they are dead and left to die in their 
last resting-place. 
I have somewhat diverged from my story. But to 
proceed. As we approached this spot—ever afterwards 
known as Muller’s Bush—Currie advised us all to look 
to our guns and see that the caps and priming were 
dry—for we all, officers and men, carried double- 
barrelled guns in those days. My caps were the only 
suspicious ones. The gun had been loaded for some 
days, and the caps very soon corrode from the dew at 
night. My friend Currie actually scraped the caps off 
my gun with his knife, pressed a little fine powder 
into the nipples, and re-capped the gun. We had 
