of
war."

"And a very excellent place it is for such a purpose," I agreed, as my
eye took in the wide area of level, unbroken ground. "There is room
enough here in which to fight a battle of quite respectable dimensions.
But what are those moving objects yonder?" I interrupted myself
eagerly, as my gaze was arrested by a group of some ten or a dozen dark
dots moving slowly among the long grass at the opposite extremity of the
valley. "Surely they must be buffalo, or I am greatly mistaken."

"You are not mistaken, they are buffalo; and you have a marvellously
sharp eye, white man," returned the king. Then he flung up his hand,
and the galloping regiment came to a sudden halt, reining-in their
sweating horses so sharply as to throw the animals back upon their
haunches. At the same moment we also reined up. Then the king called
his indunas round him, instructing one of them to take fifty men, and
with them ride round the outside of the basin until they reached the
only other exit from the valley, and block it, so that the buffalo might
not escape through it; while a second induna was also to take fifty men
and block the exit through which we had just passed, thus rendering
escape from the valley an impossibility, for, as the king now informed
me, the surrounding cliffs were everywhere vertical, so that no animal,
save, perhaps, a baboon, could possibly enter or leave the basin except
by one or the other of the two natural gateways in the cliff.

"Now, white man," said the king, turning to me with sparkling eyes and
pointing toward the buffalo, "there is your opportunity. Kill me two or
three of those with your fire weapon, and then you shall see how the
Basuto hunt buffalo."

"Very well," I said; "I will see what I can do. But we shall have to
get very much nearer to them than we are at present; for even my fire
weapon will not kill at such a distance as that."

"No?" demanded the king. "Then how close must you get before it will
kill?"

"Oh," I said, "perhaps one-sixth of the present distance of the
buffalo."

The king was evidently disappointed to learn that there was a limit to
the range of the rifle, and for the moment seemed inclined to regard it
somewhat contemptuously. Without wasting further words upon so very
ineffective a weapon, he proceeded to issue his orders to the other
indunas, in obedience to which the regiment divided itself into two, one
half riding to the left and the other to the ri