pers; beyond the
creepers was a dense bush of sharp-pointed aloes, of that kind of which
the leaves project laterally, and on the other side of the aloes, not
fifteen paces from us, I made out the horns, neck, and the ridge of the
back of a tremendous old bull. I took my eight-bore, and getting on
to my knee prepared to shoot him through the neck, taking my chance of
cutting his spine. I had already covered him as well as the aloe leaves
would allow, when he gave a kind of sigh and lay down.

"I looked round in dismay. What was to be done now? I could not see
to shoot him lying down, even if my bullet would have pierced the
intervening aloes--which was doubtful--and if I stood up he would either
run away or charge me. I reflected, and came to the conclusion that the
only thing to do was to lie down also; for I did not fancy wandering
after other buffaloes in that dense bush. If a buffalo lies down, it
is clear that he must get up again some time, so it was only a case of
patience--'fighting the fight of sit down,' as the Zulus say.

"Accordingly I sat down and lighted a pipe, thinking that the smell of
it might reach the buffalo and make him get up. But the wind was the
wrong way, and it did not; so when it was done I lit another. Afterwards
I had cause to regret that pipe.

"Well, we squatted like this for between half and three quarters of an
hour, till at length I began to grow heartily sick of the performance.
It was about as dull a business as the last hour of a comic opera.
I could hear buffaloes snorting and moving all round, and see the
red-beaked tic birds flying up off their backs, making a kind of hiss
as they did so, something like that of the English missel-thrush, but I
could not see a single buffalo. As for my old bull, I think he must have
slept the sleep of the just, for he never even stirred.

"Just as I was making up my mind that something must be done to save the
situation, my attention was attracted by a curious grinding noise.
At first I thought that it must be a buffalo chewing the cud, but was
obliged to abandon the idea because the noise was too loud. I shifted
myself round and stared through the cracks in the bush, in the direction
whence the sound seemed to come, and once I thought that I saw something
gray moving about fifty yards off, but could not make certain. Although
the grinding noise still continued I could see nothing more, so I gave
up thinking about it, and once again turned my a