ot believe it, and easily satisfied themselves that their opinion
was right; as, after listening a minute or so, and riding round a little
way, they declared they only heard a crack of some sort in the bush, and
had not seen a single elephant, and that the noises we said we had heard
must have been caused by our imagination.

Our opinion had been formed from half an hour's careful listening,
_theirs_ from two minutes noisy looking round. Is there any
self-sufficiency in this sort of conclusions I wonder? I may here
relate a ridiculous mistake that I made, and a narrow escape of Kaffir
slaughter, both caused by my eagerness for a fine specimen of the black
bush-buck.

I have before mentioned one or two little open patches on the top of the
Berea. I was riding over these one afternoon, looking for fresh
elephant spoor, when I saw, about two hundred yards distant, a black
object just visible in the long grass, and there was no doubt in my mind
that it was a black bush-buck. I dropped off my horse, and stalked with
the greatest care to within about eighty yards of it; I suddenly raised
my head to get a peep, and saw only a black back, and recognised a
little movement in the tail, which was very buck-like. The object was
partly hidden by bushes and grass; the spot was most retired.

I guessed where the shoulders would be, and sent my bullet at them into
the long grass; the animal fell over backwards, and I rushed to the spot
to discover an old goat, shot directly through the heart. At the same
time a little Kaffir sprang up close to the corpse, in a great fright.
He informed me that this was the pet ram of an old Kaffir who lived
nearly two miles distant; that the grass having been burnt near his
kraal, he had sent his boy with the pet to graze on this spot, where the
grass was very good. It cost me three shillings to pacify the old
fellow, and an extra fee to secure his silence, as the story would not
have told well for me. This accident I believe saved a Kaffir's life
from being sacrificed to a similar mistake; for I again took for a buck
a black object in a most retired part of the forest. I was about firing
when I remembered the goat mistake, and approached a little closer to
have a better look. I was prepared in case of the buck bounding off,
when I gave a little whistle to alarm it, and enable me to have a full
view. The object moved when I whistled, and rising to nearly six feet
in height, showed itself t