approach even nearer. It was plain they had never been hunted.

Once or twice I was within range of a pair of old bulls, who seemed to
act as a rearguard. But I did not want to shoot one of them. I knew
their flesh would turn out tough. I wished to get something more tender.
I wished to send a bullet into a heifer, or one of the young bulls whose
horns had not yet begun to curve. Of these I saw several in the herd.

Tame as the animals were, I could not manage to get near enough to any
of these. The old bulls at the head always led them beyond my range; and
the two that brought up the rear, seemed to drive them forward as I
advanced upon them.

Well, in this way they beguiled me along for more than a mile; and the
excitement of the chase made me quite forget how wrong it was of me to
go so far from the camp. But thinking about the meat, and still hopeful
of getting a shot, I kept on.

At length the hunt led me into ground where there was no longer any
bush; but there was good cover, notwithstanding, in the ant-hills, that,
like great tents, stood at equal distances from each other scattered
over the plain. These were very large--some of them more than twelve
feet high--and differing from the dome-shaped kind so common everywhere.
They were of the shape of large cones, or rounded pyramids, with a
number of smaller cones rising around their bases, and clustering like
turrets along their sides. I knew they were the hills of a species of
white ant called by entomologists _Termes bellicosus_.

There were other hills, of cylinder shape and rounded tops, that stood
only about a yard high; looking like rolls of unbleached linen set
upright--each with an inverted basin upon its end. These were the homes
of a very different species, the _Termes mordax_ of the entomologists;
though still another species of _Termes_ build their nests in the same
form.

I did not stop then to examine these curious structures. I only speak of
them now, to give you an idea of the sort of place it was, so that you
may understand what followed.

What with the cone-shaped hills and the cylinders, the plain was pretty
well covered. One or the other was met with every two hundred yards; and
I fancied with these for a shelter I should have but little difficulty
in getting within shot of the gnoos.

I made a circuit to head them, and crept up behind a large cone-shaped
hill, near which the thick of the drove was feeding. When I peeped
through the