A BAD CARTRIDGE 
205 
satory value, for the most optimistic mind could hardly declare 
that about threepennyworth of cooked beans, barely sufficient 
for one meal for Hammar and myself, was an equivalent doing 
justice to Makoyo’s calculative powers and intelligence. When 
this inequality was thoroughly explained to Makoyo he with 
much dignified generosity referred us to the ubiquitous 
mabula-trees. 
Meat was a sine qua non to the existence of our hard- 
worked boys, and up till very lately, it was only necessary to 
stick out a gun and pull the trigger to obtain the required 
supply. But in these inhospitable sand-belts, producing only 
poor grass, the game wisely kept away, naturally preferring to 
frequent the neighbourhood of running streams, along whose 
banks the richer grasses flourish in great profusion. Still I 
went out in search of any straying game that possibly might be 
in the neighbourhood, and acting on the hunter’s axiom, that if 
you go on until you find something you are sure to meet with 
success, I went about eight miles south-west from camp before 
coming across anything, and then Child pointed out some moving 
objects nearly a mile away that could only be game. This was 
not the time for any recklessness, something had to be shot or 
we should starve. Carefully going into the points of wind, 
cover, etc., we made a detour to bring us into the most favour¬ 
able position for a stalk, and came out unobserved to within 
half a mile of the troop, which now proved to consist of seven 
quaggas. On the open flat intervening between us there were 
only one or two scraggy little bushes to afford shelter for a stalk; 
so, bidding the boys wait, I threw myself flat on the sandy 
ground and wormed myself along to within three hundred and 
fifty yards, when it appeared that the quaggas were getting 
suspicious, for they pricked up their ears and stared about, 
stamping their feet, and might be off at any moment. A large 
mare offered the best mark, and her I singled out for a victim 
and pulled. But, bad luck to it, there was a damaged cartridge 
in the gun, and I had the mortification of seeing the bullet fall 
quite one hundred yards short in the sand, as the troop made 
