oon espied a large herd quietly feeding. They were quite
unconscious of my approach, so I took a shot at a cow, and wounded her;
then, after reloading, put a ball in a bull and staggered him also. This
caused great confusion among them; but as none of the animals knew where
the shots came from, they simply shifted about in a fidgety manner,
allowing me to kill the first cow, and even fire a fourth shot, which
sickened the great bull, and induced him to walk off, leaving the herd
to their fate, who, considerably puzzled, began moving off also.

I now called up the boys, and determined on following the herd down
before either skinning the dead cow or following the bull, who I knew
could not go far. Their footprints being well defined in the moist
sandy soil, we soon found the herd again; but as they now knew they were
pursued, they kept moving on in short runs at a time, when, occasionally
gaining glimpses of their large dark bodies as they forced through the
bush, I repeated my shots and struck a good number, some more and some
less severely. This was very provoking; for all of them being stern
shots were not likely to kill, and the jungle was so thick I could not
get a front view of them. Presently, however, one with her hind leg
broken pulled up on a white-ant hill, and, tossing her horns, came down
with a charge the instant I showed myself close to her. One crack of the
rifle rolled her over, and gave me free scope to improve the bag, which
was very soon done; for on following the spoors, the traces of blood led
us up to another one as lame as the last. He then got a second bullet
in the flank, and, after hobbling a little, evaded our sight and
threw himself into a bush, where we not sooner arrived than he plunged
headlong at us from his ambush, just, and only just, giving me time to
present my small 40-gauge Lancaster.

It was a most ridiculous scene. Suliman by my side, with the instinct of
a monkey, made a violent spring and swung himself by a bough immediately
over the beast, whilst Faraj bolted away and left me single-gunned to
polish him off. There was only one course to pursue, for in one instant
more he would have been into me; so, quick as thought, I fired the gun,
and, as luck would have it, my bullet, after passing through the edge of
one of his horns, stuck in the spine of his neck, and rolled him over at
my feet as dead as a rabbit. Now, having cut the beast's throat to make
him "hilal," according to Muss