216 
TEE NEW AFRICA 
and then got up to go out hunting, intending to get beyond 
the limits of where the party had been skirmishing round the 
previous day before daylight, and hoping by taking the opposite 
direction from mine of yesterday, to come upon game that had 
not yet been disturbed by our party. My legs were very stiff 
and sore from the previous day’s work, but I called up some of 
the boys, and made them rub my limbs down with their hands 
wetted with saliva, a kind of massage that soon put them in 
working order again. 
When I called on the boys to follow me, none responded, but 
they all slapped their hollow bellies, which emitted a drum-like 
sound. So telling them it was their own fault if they got no 
meat, as I was not going to return till something was killed, I 
went off', and soon saw several of them get up by the firelight 
and follow. 
I had gone about four miles by daylight, and, as the light 
grew, distinguished a single old wary sassaby looking at me 
from about five hundred yards distance. This being too far to 
risk a shot at, while there might be game in the vicinity which 
would let me approach nearer, and which I did not care to startle 
by a shot, I proceeded down the open laagte. But the old sassaby, 
trotting into the open trees lining the laagte on the south, kept 
his approximate distance, never attempting to fly, but, to my 
great annoyance, never letting me get any nearer. Several 
times, as I found a favourable bush to stalk up under, he quietly 
went on meanwhile, and when I looked he was the stereotyped 
five hundred yards away. We continued this game till the 
sun was already high in the heavens, and, seeing no other game, 
I made up my mind to try a shot at the next favourable 
opportunity. The sassaby at last climbed on to a mound, an 
old grass-grown ant-heap on the edge of the trees; and, as I 
sat down, he seemed to enjoy my discomfiture, for he turned 
about and looked contentedly in every direction. Judging him 
to be five hundred yards off, I waited till he was end on, to give 
me the advantage of any miscalculation in distance and con¬ 
sequent rise or fall in the trajectory of the shot, and then 
