we lay, with a loud roar, and immediately
crouched to spring upon Romer; but it could not, for the back-bone being
broken, it had not any power in its hinder quarters, so it raised up its
fore quarters, and then dropped down again. I never saw such rage and
fury in an animal in my life. At first we were too much frightened to
fire; but, perceiving that the beast could not spring, Hastings snatched
the musket from Romer and shot it through the head.

"We were now obliged to hunt for our livelihood, and we became bolder
than ever. Our clothes were all in rags; but we had plenty of powder
and ammunition; there were hundreds and hundreds of antelopes and gnus
in the plain--indeed, sometimes it was impossible to count them. But
this plentiful supply of game was the cause of our being in greater
danger, for now, for the first time, we heard the roar of the lions
every night. We made large fires to keep them off, but they often made
us tremble when they came near to us."

"Did you ever meet with one in the day-time?" said William.

"Yes, sir; we often saw them, but they never attacked us, and we were
too much afraid to fire at them. Once we met one face to face. We had
killed an antelope called a hartebeest, and, with our muskets on our
shoulders, were running to secure it. Just as we came up to the spot,
we heard a roar, and found ourselves not ten yards from a lion, who was
lying on the top of the beast we had killed, his eyes flashing fire at
us, and half raising himself, as if ready for a spring. We all took to
our heels as fast as we could. I never looked back till I was out of
breath: but the lion was content with our running away, and did not take
the trouble to follow us. Well, sir, we had been travelling, we really
hardly knew where, but certainly in a northerly direction, for three
weeks, and were quite worn out: we now all agreed that we had done a
very foolish thing, and would gladly have gone back again. For my part,
I declare that I was willing to lie down and die, if I could have so
done, and I became quite indifferent to the roaring of the lions, and
felt as if I should be glad if one would have made a meal of me. At
length, one morning, we fell in with a party of natives. They were of
the Karroo tribe, as they told us by pointing to themselves, and saying,
`Karroos', and then they pointed to us, and said `Dutch'. We shot game,
and gave it to them, which pleased them very much, and they remained