Harry got a shot at another of our disturbers, and then the growling died away in the distance and finally ceased altogether. We went back to our beds and were not called again. When we rose in the morning we found that our shots had told, as a lion and lioness, both severely wounded, were on the ground half a mile or so from camp. Jack went out with his rifle and finished them in short order, and the Kaffirs removed their skins.
CHAPTER IV.
NARROW ESCAPE FROM A BUFFALO—A DIVERGENT EXCURSION.
At breakfast we had a difference of opinion as to what we should do during the day. I wanted to hunt elephants, in case any could be found; Harry thought we ought to take the horses and try for elands, gemsbok, hartbeest, or some others of the antelope family that abounds in the open country; Jack suggested that a turn at buffalo would suit him best, and he had learned from his tracker that there was a herd of buffalo off to the westward.
"Whereabout to the westward?" queried Harry.
"As near as I can make out," replied Jack, "it is somewhere in the direction where those women are encamped."
Harry gave a low whistle, and said he thought it might be just as well to make an effort for those buffaloes; in fact, he preferred buffalo-hunting to anything else, provided the game was in that direction. I was of the same opinion, and so it was decided that after breakfast we should start on a buffalo-hunt.
Hunting the buffalo is pretty nearly as dangerous sport as hunting the elephant. The African buffalo is a large and vicious beast, and has great strength and endurance. He is an ugly-looking brute at his best, and his disposition is quite in keeping with his personal beauty. One of my first adventures with a bull-buffalo nearly cost me my life.
It was one afternoon near sunset, when I was camped with a party in the Amaswazi country. I was taking a stroll a mile or so away from camp, and had a dog with me, and also my tracker and gun-bearer. I saw plenty of birds and small game, but nothing that I cared to shoot, and was about to turn back when Mirogo, the tracker, suddenly made a motion of silence, and pointed with his spear to a little thicket of wait-a-bit thorns. I could not see anything at first, but in a minute or so discovered the outline of a large buffalo about sixty yards distant. I suppose he had gone into the thorn-thicket for the pleasure of titillating his hide, and the African wait-a-bits ought to be just the thing for that purpose. The hide of the African buffalo is fully as thick as that of an American one; it is a saying of old plainsmen in America that there is nothing in the world which gives so much pleasure to a healthy old Bos Americanus of the bull sort as a scratch with a brad-awl, and a good-sized brad-awl is about the equivalent of a wait-a-bit thorn.
Well, I stalked along quietly, until I got within about thirty yards of that buffalo, and took a shot at his shoulder. He ran away, with the dog after him, and I followed up as fast as I could. The dog brought him to bay in a place which was not at all agreeable; I was inexperienced in buffalo-hunting, and went into the clump of bushes where he was, much nearer than was prudent. He saw me and charged; I did not have time to bring the rifle to my shoulder, and just fired a snap-shot, which glanced off his forehead like a hailstone off the roof of a house.