BUSH-BUCK KILLS A BOY 
267 
following into thickets a wounded bush-buck, who, hard pressed, 
has made a determined attack on his pursuers with his short 
straight horns that compelled them to take refuge up the nearest 
tree. He is not to be trifled with at such times; and a case is 
on record in Natal where some children returning from school 
along a bush path were met by a wounded ram flying from the 
chase, who buried his horns in the abdomen of one of them, a 
boy of nine years old called Rethman, inflicting injuries that 
caused his death immediately afterwards. 
A large pan we passed thickly populated with black spur¬ 
winged geese provided us with a good meal. I shot several with 
two shots from the long Martini-Henry, getting them in line 
before I pulled the trigger, and Harnmar made some excellent 
flying long shots, bringing down some more with the double 
choke-bore. We simply fell ravenously upon this supply of 
meat, for our hunger was getting quite serious. One feed of 
Kaffir corn a day and an occasional scrap of meat is poor fare 
to keep marching on. 
Our new route led us too far from the river, so we—fearing to 
venture much further without the certainty of water ahead— 
turned to the left again and, passing through thick thorn bush, 
were glad once more to find ourselves on the banks of the river. 
The country traversed during the last few days, with the 
decaying coarse vegetation left in the wake of the retreating 
water, caused us to think it advisable to take quinine as a pre¬ 
ventative against malaria. Regularly every other day we con¬ 
sumed six grains, and when we had been passing through par¬ 
ticularly obnoxious parts, we took the dose daily. Each night as 
we retired to rest the melodious coarse grunt of the hippos living 
in great numbers in the reeds lulled us to sleep. There is a 
ring of uncivilised wildness coupled to the notes of hippopotami 
that to my mind intensifies the sense of savagedom associated 
with the interior. 
In one of the frequent creeks running inland many of our 
boys plunged over their heads into the water, thinking this to 
be shallow like the rest of these waters we were constantly cross- 
