nt of the impending danger. I took the sea-cow next me, and
with my first ball I gave her a mortal wound, knocking loose a great
plate on the top of her skull. She at once commenced plunging round
and round, and then occasionally remained still, sitting for a few
minutes on the same spot. On hearing the report of my rifle two of
the others took up stream, and the fourth dashed down the river; they
trotted along, like oxen, at a smart pace as long as the water was
shallow. I was now in a state of very great anxiety about my wounded
sea-cow, for I feared that she would get down into deep water, and
be lost like the last one; her struggles were still carrying her
down stream, and the water was becoming deeper. To settle the matter
I accordingly fired a second shot from the bank, which, entering
the roof of her skull, passed out through her eye; she then, kept
continually splashing round and round in a circle in the middle of the
river. I had great fears of the crocodiles, and I did not know that
the sea-cow might not attack me. My anxiety to secure her, however,
overcame all hesitation; so, divesting myself of my leathers, and
armed with a sharp knife. I dashed into the water, which at first took
me up to my arm-pits, but in the middle was shallower. As I approached
Behemoth her eye looked very wicked. I halted for a moment, ready to
dive under the water if she attacked me, but she was stunned, and did
not know what she was doing; so, running in upon her, and seizing
her short tail, I attempted to incline her course to land. It was
extraordinary what enormous strength she still had in the water. I
could not guide her in the slightest, and she continued to splash, and
plunge, and blow, and make her circular course, carrying me along with
her as if I was a fly on her tail. Finding her tail gave me but a poor
hold, as the only means of securing my prey, I took out my knife, and
cutting two deep parallel incisions through the skin on her rump, and
lifting this skin from the flesh, so that I could get in my two hands,
I made use of this as a handle; and after some desperate hard work,
sometimes pushing and sometimes pulling, the sea-cow continuing her
circular course all the time and I holding on at her rump like grim
Death, eventually I succeeded in bringing this gigantic and most
powerful animal to the bank. Here the Bushman, quickly brought me a
stout buffalo-rheim from my horse's neck, which I passed through the
opening in t