natives, under the guidance of a Caffre servant named Mafuta, and were
well repaid for the time thus spent, by the immense variety of insects
and plants which the naturalists found everywhere. But that which
delighted them most was the animal life with which the whole region
teemed. They saw immense herds of wolves, deer of various kinds,
hyenas, elands, buffalo, and many other wild beasts, besides innumerable
flocks of water-fowl of all kinds. But they passed these unmolested,
having set their hearts that day on securing higher game. As Wilkins
said, "nothing short of a lion, an elephant, a rhinoceros, or
hippopotamus" would satisfy them and that they had some chance of
securing one or more of these formidable brutes was clear, because their
voices had been several times heard, and their footprints had been seen
everywhere.

About an hour after resuming their walk, the major went off in hot
pursuit of an enormous bee, which he saw humming round a bush. About
the same time, Wilkins fell behind to examine one of the numerous plants
that were constantly distracting his attention, so that our hero was
left for a time to hunt alone with the natives. He was walking a
considerable distance in advance of them when he came to a dense thicket
which was black as midnight, and so still that the falling of a leaf
might have been heard. Tom Brown surveyed the thicket quietly for a few
seconds, and observing the marks of some large animal on the ground, he
beckoned to the Caffre who carried his spare double-barrelled gun. Up
to this date our hero had not shot any of the large denizens of the
African wilderness, and now that he was suddenly called upon to face
what he believed to be one of them, he acquitted himself in a way that
might have been expected of a member of the Brown family! He put off
his shoes, cocked his piece, and entered the thicket alone--the natives
declining to enter along with him. Coolly and very quietly he advanced
into the gloomy twilight of the thicket, and as he went he felt as
though all the vivid dreams and fervid imaginings about lions that had
ever passed through his mind from earliest infancy were rushing upon him
in a concentrated essence! Yet there was no outward indication of the
burning thoughts within, save in the sparkle of his dark brown eye, and
the flush of his brown cheek. As he wore a brown shooting-coat, he may
be said to have been at that time Brown all over!

He had proceeded