merous bends and curves, and were
sometimes overgrown with high grass, then again quite bare. I paid no
attention to the direction we took.

After a while one of the men wounded a buck, and they both rode into the
donga after it. I rode on, to cross the donga a little further on, so as
not to have to follow in the track of the other two, and saw a red buck
on the other side, which I wounded so badly that it seemed unnecessary
to fire again, and I rode leisurely towards it. But when I had crossed
the donga the buck had disappeared, and I began to seek for the traces
of blood, but I soon had to give up the search, not to lose sight of the
other two men. They, however, seemed to be a great distance off, as I
did not overtake them, and I did not succeed in tracing them in the
direction that the wounded buck had led them, as the track in the grass
was invisible to my inexperienced eye.

I rode back to the donga, and deliberated on the course to take. In all
directions I heard shots, right and left, but I stood irresolute. I had
no watch with me to find the four quarters of the wind, but the sun had
only just risen, and I made a guess with an imaginary compass. It was
lucky for me that I made such a good guess, and had paid great attention
to the direction we had taken with regard to the sun. I was certain that
I should come upon the traces of the lager if only I kept within the
sides of a right angle, unless the lager had at the start taken a sharp
turn to the right or left.

But it was possible that in our excitement we might have crossed the
waggon track which the lager was to follow; then the lager would be far
to the right. Standing thus like the ass between two bundles of hay, I
was not in the mood to think lightly of my case, but had to act at once,
so I chose the safest and more probable of the two sides of my right
angle--namely, the left, as I would then in any case not be moving
towards Portuguese territory, and could always turn to the Krokodil
River.

I felt pretty certain now, as it was more probable that we had not
crossed the old waggon tract, and every moment I expected to hear the
switching of the long whips. But when I had gone some distance I was
obliged to return to the donga, and retrace my way to the place where we
had slept. A clever Boer would have succeeded in finding the way back,
but I soon lost my way altogether. I lost the traces of the horse's
hoofs, and the dongas looked to me so different