There is a remarkably fine fall of water at this place. The Umgeni River falls over a high precipice, and although for the greater part of the year it is only an insignificant stream, the immense leap the waters take over the rocky boulders makes a very imposing sight. Having plenty of time before us, we spent nearly an hour beside the cataract, watching the clouds of spray and mist which issued from the lower basin. After the horses had been seen to, we started off, very soon diverging from the main road, and traversed a country covered with tall grass, which suggested “snakes.” At last, at half past ten o’clock, we reached our destination, on the outskirts of what appeared to us an extensive forest.
We soon had the good things we had brought with us transferred from the cart to a grassy knoll, and our charioteer outspanning and knee-haltering the horses, let them wander away and graze. After having made all our preparations, we sat down on a fallen log, and looked around us. It was a beautiful spot; in the deep green forest convolvuli and other flowering creepers had formed themselves into fantastic arches, more lovely than art could fabricate. The silence of the secluded spot was broken by the notes of many birds, some of them almost meriting the name of songsters, while the air was full of the buzzing hum of insects. The cry of the partridge issued from the underbrush, and the voice of the lowrie and hornbill could be heard, while the rocks and branches overhead resounded with the bark of baboons and the chatterings of monkeys.
Whilst we were dreamily listening to the forest chorus, we thought we could distinguish above it distant shouts of men, and we stood up wondering if our hunters had mistaken the hour, or had driven up by hunger nearly two hours before their time, when bang! bang! went a gun, less than fifty yards away from us. Almost simultaneously a magnificent bush buck burst through the thicket, breaking down everything before him. For an instant he stopped short, gazing at us, while we, spellbound, could only mutely return his stare; suddenly turning off at right angles, he bounded through our luncheon already spread on the grass, scattering the comestibles, crockery, and glassware in every direction.
Just as he disappeared in the opposite bush, ten or twelve Zulus, brandishing assegais and knob-kerries, with a pack of howling and yelping dogs at their heels, sprang out from the underwood in hot pursuit. In the rear came our sporting friends, looking almost as savage as their Kafir allies, crashing through the thorn bushes, seemingly as oblivious of the scratches they were receiving as they evidently were of our presence. As they came opposite us, one of them dropped on his knee, and, taking rapid aim at some object we could not see, fired.
The shouts of the savages immediately announced that the antelope was down. We all rushed in the direction of the spot where the barking and the yelping of the dogs told us the noble animal was fighting with his tormentors, and, scampering helter-skelter through the bushes, arrived on the field of battle. The buck was down, and almost hidden by the dogs which hung around him, growling and worrying, while over him in a superb attitude stood one of the savages, whose gory knife bore evidence of its having inflicted the coup de grace.
The other Kafirs soon drove the dogs away, and we retired to our al fresco dining hall, before they should proceed with any unromantic skinning and dismembering. We had our revenge on the buck for upsetting our banquet, for he appeared on the table again later on, but on a dish, and very nicely he tasted.