“The buffaloes, Rag? Yes, and it seems to me you are made of indiarubber; why, they played lawn tennis with you.”
“Well, massa,” said Raggy, “it was some fun to de buffaloes anyhow, and it not hurt Raggy much.”
Another day Harry had narrowly escaped being killed by a rhinoceros. Quiet enough these animals are at times, but whatever other travellers may say, I advise you to keep out of their track when they lose temper.
Somali Jack was one day posted behind his rope when down thundered a small herd of giraffes. Over went number three. Out came Jack and attacked him, but, like the witch in Tam o’ Shanter—
“Little wist he that beast’s mettle.”
One kick sent Jack flying yards and yards away; the blow alighted on his chest, and, strange to say, the blood sprang from his nose and mouth.
Jack said nobody could hit so hard as a giraffe unless his master, and he never tried again to spear a—
“Roebuck run to seed.”
They had now many rivers to cross and miles on miles to walk sometimes before they could find a ford. But the current seldom ran very strong. The worst of it was that often, even after they found the ford and got over, there was a marsh to cross, worse than any bog in old Ireland.
Many of these marshes were infested with crocodiles. Oh, how innocent these brutes can appear, basking in the sunshine on the banks, or lying in shallow streams with nothing out and up except their hideous heads!