eep the fire going all night.
That night our talk, of course, ran upon lion-hunting and shooting
expeditions. Then we crept as close to the fire as possible, and were
soon in a troubled, or untroubled, sleep, dreaming of lions and other
wild animals. But I felt the cold very much, and could not sleep without
my rug, and kept turning from side to side to get as much warmth from
the fire as possible. If only I had made two fires! In a battle I have
been between two fires, and did not find it at all agreeable, but in
this case it would have been different.

I lay awake, waiting for the third fire, the red dawn, but not in a
poetical mood. There is a time for everything; that I learnt during the
war. Rain is lovely, and cold gives energy, but one must be warm to
appreciate it. As I lay thus, four mules, tethered together, came closer
and closer up to our fire, grazing all the while. I lay still, listening
to the peculiar noise made by the biting off of each mouthful of grass.
I seemed to expect a joke, and suddenly one of the mules fell on his
back. In a moment all our heroes were up and ready to defend themselves
against lions or khakies, according to their different dreams. I
laughed, and laughed again, so that the hyenas could hear me a mile off,
and the startled lion-hunters began to laugh also, so that we woke up
the whole camp. This little episode made my blood circulate, so that I
very soon also was in the land of dreams.

As the burghers chased all the game on ahead of the lager, the President
and Commandant Boshoff agreed to go in advance, so as to have a chance
of seeing the numerous kinds of wild buck and larger game. I went with
them. Greatly to my distress I forgot to ask our guide what direction we
would take that day with regard to the sun. An experienced hunter would
not have forgotten it, as he knows from experience that in the
excitement of the chase we often leave the beaten track. I had to pay
dearly for my forgetfulness. I rode some distance to the left of the
President, but took care to keep him in sight. But the Boer is
wonderfully disobedient to any authority, and not long after two men
made their appearance to my left, and I saw that if I did not look out
they would be ahead of me in no time, and chase all the game away from
me. As the donga next to which we rode seemed to be a favourite resort
for game, I took the same direction as they did, more to the left. The
dongas ran into each other with nu