fell
to the ground and lay motionless. In this manner I chased them for about
two miles, until at length I heard in front a deep hoarse bellowing. A
moment after a band of about a hundred bulls, before hidden by a slight
swell of the plain, came at once into view. The fugitives ran toward
them. Instead of mingling with the band, as I expected, they passed
directly through, and continued their flight. At this I gave up the
chase, and kneeling down, crawled to within gunshot of the bulls, and
with panting breath and trickling brow sat down on the ground to watch
them; my presence did not disturb them in the least. They were not
feeding, for, indeed, there was nothing to eat; but they seemed to
have chosen the parched and scorching desert as the scene of their
amusements. Some were rolling on the ground amid a cloud of dust;
others, with a hoarse rumbling bellow, were butting their large heads
together, while many stood motionless, as if quite inanimate. Except
their monstrous growth of tangled grizzly mane, they had no hair; for
their old coat had fallen off in the spring, and their new one had not
as yet appeared. Sometimes an old bull would step forward, and gaze at
me with a grim and stupid countenance; then he would turn and butt his
next neighbor; then he would lie down and roll over in the dirt, kicking
his hoofs in the air. When satisfied with this amusement he would jerk
his head and shoulders upward, and resting on his forelegs stare at me
in this position, half blinded by his mane, and his face covered with
dirt; then up he would spring upon all-fours, and shake his dusty sides;
turning half round, he would stand with his beard touching the ground,
in an attitude of profound abstraction, as if reflecting on his puerile
conduct. "You are too ugly to live," thought I; and aiming at the
ugliest, I shot three of them in succession. The rest were not at all
discomposed at this; they kept on bellowing and butting and rolling
on the ground as before. Henry Chatillon always cautioned us to keep
perfectly quiet in the presence of a wounded buffalo, for any movement
is apt to excite him to make an attack; so I sat still upon the ground,
loading and firing with as little motion as possible. While I was
thus employed, a spectator made his appearance; a little antelope came
running up with remarkable gentleness to within fifty yards; and there
it stood, its slender neck arched, its small horns thrown back, and its
large dark