rip, they had
a much higher opinion of me than if I had been a trader. On the next
night I took up my quarters at the kraal of a sporting Kaffir, who was
called Inkau; he had a gun and was a mighty Nimrod, having shot
elephants, buffaloes, hippopotami, and nearly all the large game. He
was supplied with powder by a Dutchman at Natal, for the purpose of
shooting elephants, half the ivory falling to the said Dutchman's share.
He informed me that buffaloes and elands were not farther off than we
could walk while it took the sun to go from "there to there,"--pointing
to two clouds in the sky. I was now pleased that I had not paid any
attention to the croakers who had assured me there was no game whatever
about here. Elephants were not far off either, and bucks so plentiful
that they would often destroy the mealeas (as the Indian corn is here
called), if it were not regularly watched. Inkau very graphically
described the manner in which a buffalo was to be shot:--"You must get
close to him, and shoot _so_," said he, standing steady as a rock and
aiming with his gun. "If you do like this, you won't kill him;" at the
same time giving effect to his explanations by shaking himself, and
holding his gun as if in a great fright. Inkau's description was
correct.

As it was still nearly an hour to sundown, I went with two or three
Kaffirs to a neighbouring ravine, in which a reit-buck was generally
found. Inkau, like nearly every Kaffir whom I have seen, could only
shoot well at a stationary object; this reit-buck, therefore, by keeping
a sharp look-out, had managed to escape so many times from Inkau's
erring bullet, that at last he gave up firing at him as a waste of
powder. On our nearing the long reeds, the buck sprang out, and
cantered quietly up the hill; the Kaffirs shouted to me to fire, but I
waited until his outline stood out in bold relief against the sky, when
I lodged an ounce of lead in his shoulder, which had the effect on him
of an irresistible invitation to that night's supper; his steaks were
most excellent eating, and I thenceforth stood high in Inkau's
estimation.

A reit-buck, as he falls, weighs something over a hundred pounds, and in
Inkau's kraal, at the feast, there were about thirty people, men, women,
and children. Yet such were the performances in gastronomy, that there
was after dinner scarcely a sufficient quantity of the reit-buck
remaining to supply me with a breakfast on the following morni