ghted on the back of any
weak-minded elephant who might presume to attempt to haul me down.
Unfortunately, all the illumination was wasted on the desert air, for no
elephants came to me, although I kept awake and watchful all night. My
Kaffir thought me mad, a very common conclusion if one does not do every
thing in the old way. Still, although my night was elephantless, I did
not consider it as wasted, as the quietness around, only broken by the
whispering of the leaves as they affectionately felt each other, and the
occasional tiny cries of the ichneumons and other vermin, or the blowing
of a buck and rustle of a herd of wild swine, were all music to an ear
more easily pleased with the wild side of nature than the crash of
omnibus wheels, or the murmur of crowded rooms.

The monotony of this night was broken by one of those events that must,
and do, frequently take place everywhere, and in many cases without the
natural excuse that could be pleaded here, "it was the weak oppressed
and crushed by the strong."

A red bush-buck had gone out into an open glade, and was quietly taking
its dew-refreshed grass supper. I had noticed for some time the
innocent way in which it had continued grazing, quite unconscious that a
deadly enemy was near, who only refrained from slaying it in the hope
that larger game would, by patience, be soon substituted. Suddenly a
black looking sort of shadow with a bound was upon it--a shriek, an
instant struggle, and all was quiet. My Kaffir whispered to me that he
thought we should fire, as leopards' skins were valuable for making
tails (the Kaffirs' waist-dress is thus called by the colonists). This
whisper was not sufficient to cause alarm, but while moving a little to
cock his gun, the Kaffir shook a branch, and the representative of the
feline race, taking up his capture, bounded away. We inspected the
ground on the following morning and found that there had scarcely been a
struggle.

One is frequently curiously attended in Africa by strange followers, and
I found myself one night with a footman behind me that might have struck
terror into a lady's heart were John Thomas to be thus suddenly
transformed. Happening to be at the house famous for the leopard's
visit, and going out at about ten o'clock to saddle my horse that I had
tied to a tree in the garden, I found him absent; and upon inquiring at
the Kaffirs' kraal near, they told me that he had broken his halter and
levanted for