African Nature Notes and Reminiscences

CHAPTER VII

At times I have come across these animals lying in the shade of scattered trees, on bare ground, from which all the grass had been burnt off, and they would then trot away, continually stopping and looking back, but making no sound. But I can remember distinctly two occasions on which I suddenly disturbed a pack of wild dogs in longish grass. On both these occasions they were very near to me, but could not very well make me out, owing to the length of the grass. They retreated very slowly, and kept jumping up, looking at me inquisitively, with their large ears cocked forward. At the same time they gave vent to a kind of bark, the sound being repeated twice. This double note might be represented by the syllables "hoo-hoo."

On one of these two occasions which I say I remember so well, I was hunting—in 1873—in the country about half-way between Bulawayo and the Victoria Falls, not very far, I fancy, from the present railway line. After a long march I had reached a swampy valley—then known by the name of Dett—where there was water, and where I intended to camp. Seeing some buffaloes drinking a little way down the valley, and wanting some fresh meat, I at once proceeded to stalk them. The stream at which the buffaloes were drinking ran down the centre of an open valley some 300 yards broad, in which there was no cover, except that afforded by coarse grass, some 2-1/2 feet to 3 feet in length. Being armed with only an old muzzle-loading four-bore gun, I had to get pretty close to anything I wanted to shoot, and I had crawled half-way to the buffaloes when I saw them all suddenly raise their heads and look down the valley. I immediately looked in the same direction, and then heard a heavy trampling noise, which I knew must be caused by a herd of large animals running.

This noise came rapidly nearer, and on raising myself so that I could look over the grass, I saw a herd of perhaps forty or fifty buffaloes coming straight towards me at a lumbering gallop. At the same time I heard a noise which sounded like kak-kak-kak constantly repeated. The buffaloes came straight on towards me, and had I remained quiet would have run right over me, so when they were within twenty yards I jumped up and shouted. The leaders stopped for a moment, and then, swerving slightly, dashed close past me. I fired into one of them, and immediately afterwards saw some wild dogs—a pack of about twenty—jumping up in the long grass to look at me.

They had been hanging on to the rear of the herd of buffaloes, which they had undoubtedly first put to flight, and had they not been disturbed, would, I think, have probably succeeded in pulling down a young animal. Had I not witnessed this incident with my own eyes, I never should have thought it possible that a herd of buffaloes would have allowed themselves to be stampeded by a few wild dogs. These latter gave up the chase as soon as they saw me, and after hoo-hooing a little, trotted off. The barking hoo-hoo and the clacking kak-kak-kak are the only sounds that I have ever heard wild dogs make, but I cannot claim to have had much experience with these animals. Wild dogs sometimes hunt by day, but more usually at night, and in the latter case must be guided entirely by their acute sense of smell. As a rule, they certainly run mute.

On the first occasion on which I ever had anything to do with wild dogs, they ran into and killed an impala antelope quite close to my waggon on a dark night in 1872. We ran up with lights and drove them from the carcase, a good deal of which they had, however, already devoured. About a month later another pack of wild dogs drove a koodoo cow into a shed used as a stable, attached to a store near the Blue Jacket gold mine at Tati, in Matabeleland. I was there at the time, and on this occasion the wild dogs were driven off by some Kafir boys, who speared the koodoo inside the shed.

For some time during the year 1888 my waggon was standing at Leshuma, a water-hole which is situated just ten miles from the junction of the Chobi and Zambesi rivers. One morning I walked down to Kazungula, at the junction of the rivers, and on returning to my waggon the same evening, was surprised to see the meat of a freshly killed koodoo hanging up in my camp, as game of all kinds was very scarce in the district. On asking my old Griqua servant where he had shot the koodoo, he replied, "Master, the good Lord gave it us, for the wild dogs brought it right up to the waggon." On further inquiry, I found that soon after midday a pack of those animals had chased the koodoo to within less than a hundred yards of the waggon, and then run it in a circle completely round it. When my waggon-driver ran out with his rifle, both the wild dogs and the koodoo stopped and looked at him, the latter evidently very much distressed. Jantje at once shot the antelope, and its pursuers then ran off.

It has always struck me as somewhat remarkable that animals so confident in their powers of offence that they will sometimes attack a herd of buffaloes, and that a single one of them will occasionally try conclusions with so fierce and powerful an animal as a sable antelope bull, should never have turned their attention seriously to man as an article of diet; yet in all my experience I have never heard of wild dogs attacking human beings, nor have I ever heard either Kafirs or Bushmen express any fear of them. This is all the more remarkable because when they are met with they do not show any great fear of man, but retreat very leisurely, constantly halting and looking back curiously before finally trotting off.

All African antelopes probably live in deadly fear of wild dogs, for on the occasion when, with two companions, I saw a single wild dog overtake a sable antelope bull, the latter halted and looked round when its pursuer was about fifty yards behind it, and then, instead of showing fight, as I should have expected it to do, threw out its limbs convulsively and ran at its utmost speed; but the wild dog overhauled it with apparent ease, and twice jumped up and snapped at its flank, each time, I think, making good its bite. Now this wild dog must have been running very much faster than any South African hunting horse could do, for although it is easy enough to gallop up to sable and roan antelope cows in August and September, when these animals are heavy with calf, I have never been able to run into a bull of either of these species, though I have often attempted to do so, with very good horses, on the open downs of Mashunaland. Wild dogs, too, can run down koodoo cows and impala antelopes, as well as hartebeests and tsessebes, none of which animals can be overtaken on horseback, and I believe that the general concensus of opinion amongst African hunters would be that no horse could overtake a wild dog.

I will, however, relate an experience which shows that this is not always the case, and which will probably be read with great surprise, if not with incredulity. Early one morning in November 1885, I was travelling near the source of the Sebakwe river, in Mashunaland, in company with the late Mr. H. C. Collison, Mr. James Dawson, and Cornelis van Rooyen, a well-known Boer hunter. We were all riding together in very open country, just in front of our four bullock waggons, when we saw fifteen or twenty wild dogs emerge from a small watercourse that we had just crossed.

When we first saw them they were nearly abreast of us, and not more than 300 or 400 yards to our left. They trotted quietly along, stopping frequently to look at us, as is their wont. We possessed amongst us a large number of dogs, most of them big, rough, powerful mongrels, such as one sees on a Boer farm in the Transvaal. Calling to our dogs, we galloped towards their wild cousins, and twelve or fifteen of the former soon rushed past our horses and took up the chase at a great pace. The wild dogs now broke into a gallop, but, strange to say, instead of leaving their pursuers far behind them, they did not seem able to show any great turn of speed. We were soon right amongst them with our horses, and our dogs mobbed and pulled down two, which they held in such a way that they were quite unable to bite. Personally I picked out a fine large wild dog, in good coat, and rode at him. When my horse's forefeet were almost touching him he suddenly rolled on his back and my horse jumped over him. I galloped over this wild dog several times, and finally shot him.

During this time my companions had occupied themselves in encouraging our dogs to hold on to the two they had seized, and the rest of the wild pack had galloped off. As each of the two wild dogs that had been caught had been worried for some minutes by five or six assailants, all larger and heavier than itself, we thought they were dead and beat off our dogs. Their two badly used relatives lay quite still and limp, and we dragged them, together with the one I had shot, to a tree near a small stream, where we intended to skin them. All our dogs then went back to the waggons, which had not halted.

We had just commenced to skin the wild dog I had shot when, on looking round, I caught the eye of one of the other two that was lying dead, as we had thought, at the foot of the tree, and instantly saw that it was alive. It must have been shamming dead all the time in order to recover its strength, as immediately it caught my eye it sprang to its feet and dashed off. Two shots were fired at it as it ran, but it got clean away, apparently none the worse for the worrying it had endured. The other one which had been caught by our dogs was not quite full-grown, and as it had been held by the throat by one of our most powerful hounds, was quite dead.

I can offer no explanation as to why we were able to overtake this pack of wild dogs so easily, after chasing them for less than a mile, but the facts are as I have stated them. It is possible, I suppose, that we disturbed these wild dogs soon after they had killed some large antelope, and just after they had made a heavy meal. I cannot say, but I remember that the one I galloped over had its tongue lolling from its jaws, and showed every sign of distress.

I have, however, had two somewhat similar experiences with chetahs, which are generally credited with being the swiftest of all four-footed animals; yet upon two separate occasions, once in company with the Boer hunter Cornelis van Rooyen, and again with three English friends, I have galloped after and overtaken a large male chetah. On each occasion the chetahs squatted suddenly when the horses were close upon them, and lay flat on the ground, in which position they were both shot.

As I think that these somewhat remarkable experiences ought to be put on record, I will briefly relate the circumstances under which they took place.

One day during September 1885, when hunting in company with Cornelis van Rooyen near the Umfuli river, in Mashunaland, I rode out of a belt of forest-covered country into a broad open valley, from half a mile to a thousand yards in breadth, and bounded on the farther side again with a tract of open forest. Down the centre of this open valley ran a small watercourse, which was, however, no longer running, though several deep pools were still full of water.

My friend and I had only ridden out a short distance into the open when three chetahs, a big male and two smaller animals which were no doubt females, emerged from the creek, and after trotting a short distance away from us across the open ground, turned round and stood looking at us.

Van Rooyen and I at once rode towards them. They let us come close to the creek before running off, but when they did so, they broke into a light springing gallop and got over the ground at a great pace. The long summer grass had all been burnt off in this district, and the ground in the open valley, being firm and hard and quite free from holes, was in excellent condition for galloping.

When we commenced to race after the chetahs they had a start of at least fifty yards—I think considerably more—and the edge of the forest for which they were making could not have been more than five hundred yards distant.

Both our horses were pretty fast and in good hard condition, and we raced neck and neck as hard as we could go behind the chetahs. Whether these latter were running at their utmost speed I cannot say, but, at any rate, we slowly but steadily gained on them, and were only a few yards behind them when they reached the edge of the forest, which was very open and free from underbush. Suddenly the two female chetahs, which were a little behind the male, came to a halt, and we galloped past within a few yards of them, as we wanted to kill the largest of the three. These two female chetahs did not crouch down, but stood looking at us as we shot past them. We chased the big male another fifty yards through the open forest, and were quite close up to him, when he suddenly stopped and crouched, all in one motion as it were, and lay with his long thin body pressed flat to the ground. Van Rooyen and I were so near him that, going at the pace we were, we could not pull in our horses until we were thirty or forty yards beyond where he lay. The chetah, however, never moved again, but lay perfectly still watching us, and we dismounted and shot him where he lay. We never saw anything more of the two females, which must have run off as soon as we had passed them.

Two years later, in October 1887, I was riding one day with three English gentlemen (Messrs. J. A. Jameson, Frank Cooper, and A. Fountaine, all of whom are alive to-day and will be able to corroborate my story) through the country lying between the upper waters of the Sebakwe and Umniati rivers in Mashunaland. The ground was not quite open, as it was covered here and there with a growth of small trees, but as these grew very sparsely there was nothing to stop one from riding at full gallop in every direction. As we rode along I was on the left of our party. Suddenly my horse turned his head and snorted. I at once pulled him in, calling to my companions to stop, as I thought my horse must have smelt a lion lying somewhere near us.

I had scarcely spoken when up jumped a very large male chetah within twenty yards of my horse and bounded away across the open ground, holding his long, thick, furry tail straight out behind him.

This chetah did not get much of a start, as we galloped after him as soon as ever we could get our horses started. The chase may have lasted for a mile, though I think certainly not farther, and the chetah never seemed to be able to get away from us, and if he was capable of going at a greater pace, I cannot understand why he did not do so. At the end of a mile, however, Jameson, who was the light-weight of our party, and who was, moreover, mounted on a very fast Basuto pony, was close up to the chetah, and the rest of us were perhaps thirty yards behind him. Suddenly the hunted animal squatted flat on the ground, and Jameson's pony was then so close to it that it jumped clean over it. The action of this chetah was exactly the same as in the case of the one that Van Rooyen and I had chased and overtaken in 1885, and in both cases it was very remarkable how the hunted animals suddenly stopped when going at a great pace and lay flat on the ground in a single movement, as it seemed. This second chetah was shot by Jameson from his horse's back as soon as he could pull in, and it never moved again after first crouching down.

Now when we read of the wonderful speed of the tamed chetahs kept for hunting purposes in India, it certainly seems very remarkable that in South Africa these animals can be overtaken in a short distance by ordinary shooting horses.

In Jerdon's Mammals of India a very interesting description is given of hunting with trained chetahs, and I think there can be no doubt that in that country these animals are able to overtake in a fair course antelopes and gazelles which cannot be ridden down, and whose speed surpasses even that of greyhounds.

Whether the African chetah has lost the great speed of his Asiatic progenitors, and if so why, are questions which I cannot answer, but the two animals which were galloped after and overtaken by my friends and myself were both fine specimens of their kind, in good condition and apparently in the prime of life, and why they did not run away from our horses and so save their skins, if they were able to do so, is more than I can understand.

Personally, I know very little as to the life-history of chetahs, and I doubt if any one else does, as they are very rarely encountered. I once saw six of these animals together near the town of Salisbury, in Mashunaland. The teeth of the chetah are very small and weak compared with those of the leopard, hyæna, or wild dog, and its semi-retractile claws not very sharp, so I should imagine that its chief prey would be the smaller species of antelopes.

When the pioneer expedition to Mashunaland was crossing the high plateau near the source of the Sabi river, in 1890, one of the troopers of the British South Africa Police Force, who was riding along parallel with and not far from the line of waggons, came on three chetah cubs lying in the grass, and brought them to me. They could only have been a few days old, as their eyes were not yet open. I do not know what became of those chetah cubs, as my duties as guide and chief intelligence officer of the pioneer force made it impossible for me to attend to them; but I believe they were suckled by a bitch and lived for some time.

CHAPTER VIII

Since the first settlement of Europeans at the Cape of Good Hope in the seventeenth century, two species of the indigenous fauna of South Africa have become absolutely extinct. These are the blaauwbok (Hippotragus leucophaeus) and the true quagga (Equus quagga). Both these animals, however, were nearly related to species which still exist in considerable numbers, for the blaauwbok must in appearance have looked very much like a small roan antelope in which the black face markings and conspicuous white tufts under the eyes were wanting; whilst the true quagga was nothing but the dullest coloured and most southerly form of Burchell's zebra. Deplorable, therefore, as is the loss of these two animals, it is not quite so distressing as it would be had they been the sole representatives of the genera to which they belonged, and personally I look upon the disappearance of the Cape buffalo and the black and white rhinoceros from almost every part of Southern Africa, over which these animals once wandered so plentifully, with far greater regret; for when these highly specialised and most interesting creatures have completely disappeared from the face of the South African veld, there will be no living species of animal left alive in that country which resembles them in the remotest degree.

Of course, neither the Cape buffalo nor either of the two species of rhinoceroses indigenous to Africa are yet absolutely extinct in the country to the south of the Zambesi river; but of the great white or square-mouthed, grass-eating rhinoceroses, the largest of all terrestrial mammals after the elephant, none are left alive to-day with the exception of some half-dozen which still survive in Zululand, and a very few which are believed to exist in the neighbourhood of the Angwa river, in Southern Rhodesia. A few of the black or prehensile-lipped species are, I should think, still to be found here and there throughout the great stretch of uninhabited country which lies between the high plateaus of Southern Rhodesia and the Zambesi river, but, like their congener the white rhinoceros, they are now entirely extinct throughout all but an infinitesimal proportion of the vast territories over which they ranged so plentifully only half a century ago.

By the enforcement of game laws, and the establishment of large sanctuaries in uninhabited parts of the country, it will be possible, I think, to preserve in considerable numbers all the many species of antelopes still inhabiting South Africa, as well as the handsome striped zebras, for a long time to come; but never again can such scenes be witnessed as were constantly presented to the eyes of the earlier travellers in the interior of that country.

Then not only were many species of richly coloured graceful antelopes and zebras everywhere to be seen, but in the early mornings and evenings great herds of rugged horned buffaloes on their way to or from their drinking-places almost rivalled the lesser game in numbers, whilst, scattered amongst all these denizens of the modern world, the numerous long-horned, heavy-headed white rhinoceroses, together with their more alert and active-looking cousins of the prehensile-lipped species, must have appeared like survivals from a far-distant epoch of the world's history.

Even in my own time all the great game of Southern Africa was in places still abundant, and a scene which I once witnessed in October 1873 will never fade from my memory. I was at that time hunting elephants in the country to the south-east of the Victoria Falls, and one afternoon, when approaching a swampy valley known to the Bushmen by the name of "Dett," I came unexpectedly on a herd of these animals. I had killed one young bull and severely wounded a second, when I was charged by a big cow with long white tusks. I stood my ground and fired into her chest as she came on, on which she at once stopped screaming and swerved off, giving me the opportunity to place another shot in her ribs with my second gun. At that time I was only armed with two old muzzle-loading four-bore elephant guns, of the clumsiest and most antiquated description, but they hit hard nevertheless. Having got rid of the vicious old cow, I again followed the wounded bull, which I presently laid low. When my Kafirs had all assembled round the carcase, one of them said that he had seen the cow after I had fired at her, and that he thought she would not go far, as she was only walking very slowly and throwing great quantities of blood from her trunk. I at once resolved to follow her, and soon found that she was heading straight for the valley of Dett, for which I was very thankful, since the day had been intensely hot, and my Kafirs and I were badly in want of water, as we had drunk all we had been able to carry in our calabashes before we came on the elephants.

The sun was low in the western sky, and, seen through the haze of many grass fires, had already turned from blazing yellow to a dull red, when the spoor of the wounded elephant led us suddenly out of the forest into the open grassy valley, some three or four hundred yards broad, through which the little stream of the Dett made its sluggish way, forming many fine pools of water along its course. Immediately we emerged from the forest we saw the carcase of the elephant we had been following lying in the open ground within fifty yards of the water for which the poor animal had been making, but had not quite been able to reach. It was too late to commence chopping out the tusks, but, leaving some of my Kafirs to cut bushes and grass and prepare a camping-place for the night on the edge of the forest, I went with the rest to cut open the dead elephant and get the heart out for my supper.

It was whilst I was so engaged that I saw appear along the valley of Dett the most interesting collection of wild animals that I think I have ever seen collected together in a small extent of ground.

First, a few hundred yards higher up the valley than where we were working, a herd of nine giraffes stalked slowly and majestically from the forest, and, making their way to a pool of water, commenced to drink. These giraffes remained in the open valley until dark, one or other of them from time to time straddling out its forelegs in a most extraordinary manner in order to get its mouth down to the water. No other animals came to drink in the pools between us and the giraffes. Possibly some got our wind before leaving the shelter of the forest, though the evening was very still. But below us, as far as one could see down the valley, the open ground was presently alive with game. One after another, great herds of buffaloes emerged from the forest on either side of the valley and fed slowly down to the water. One of these herds was preceded by about fifty zebras, and another by a large herd of sable antelopes. Presently two other herds of sable antelopes appeared upon the scene, a second herd of zebras, and five magnificently horned old koodoo bulls, whilst rhinoceroses both of the black and white species (the latter predominating in numbers) were scattered amongst the other game, singly or in twos and threes all down the valley. Of course all this great concourse of wild animals had been collected together in the neighbourhood of the valley of Dett owing to the drying up of all the vleys in the surrounding country, and during the rainy season would have been scattered over a wide area.

It is sad to think that of all those buffaloes and rhinoceroses I saw in the valley of Dett on that October evening, less than five and thirty years ago, not one single one nor any of their descendants are left alive to-day. They were all killed off years ago, almost all by the natives of Matabeleland after these people became possessed of firearms, purchased for the most part on the Diamond Fields.

As was to be expected, the rhinoceroses were the first to go, but the buffaloes, in spite of their prodigious numbers in many parts of South Africa only a generation ago, did not long survive them, for wherever the epidemic of rinderpest penetrated in 1896 it almost completely destroyed all the buffaloes which up till then had escaped the native hunters.

It is very difficult to say with any exactitude how many buffaloes still exist in South Africa to-day. There are a certain number of these animals in the Addo bush and the Knysna forest, in the Cape Colony, which are protected by the Cape Government, and there is also a small but increasing herd inhabiting the game-reserve which has recently been established in the Eastern Transvaal. Besides these, there may be a few in the Zululand reserve which survived the rinderpest, whilst a poor remnant of the great herds I saw in the Pungwe river district in 1891 and 1892 undoubtedly still survive in that part of the country. Farther north, it is quite possible that there may still be a considerable number of buffaloes to the north and north-east of the high plateau of Mashunaland in the neighbourhood of Mount Darwin, and also in the valleys of the Umsengaisi, Panyami, and Sanyati rivers. It all depends upon whether the rinderpest penetrated to these regions in 1896 and 1897.[8]

To the west of the river Gwai, however, I believe that few, if any, buffaloes still survive in the interior of South Africa, though in my own personal experience I met with these animals in extraordinary numbers wherever I hunted between 1872 and 1880 in that part of the country, whether to the south-east of the Victoria Falls, or farther westwards along the Zambesi and as far as I went along the Chobi, or in the valleys of the Machabi (an overflow from the Okavango), the Mababi, or the Tamalakan.

In fact, speaking generally, the Cape buffalo was formerly very abundant everywhere throughout South Africa wherever there was a plentiful supply of water and grass in close proximity to shady forests; for these animals never appear to have frequented open country anywhere to the south of the Zambesi. They spread themselves all down the thickly wooded coast belt of East and South Africa as far as Mossel Bay, and along all the tributaries of the Zambesi and the Limpopo rivers, and it was probably from the headwaters of the Marico and Notwani rivers that they found their way to the Molopo, and thence through Bechwanaland to the Orange river.

Buffaloes were met with in that district, about 1783, by the French traveller Le Vaillant, and in Southern Bechwanaland some five and twenty years later by the missionary John Campbell, whilst in 1845 Mr. W. Cotton Oswell still found large herds of these animals living in the reed beds of the Molopo; but it is worthy of remark that, owing to the gradual desiccation of the country, which has been and still is constantly taking place in South-Western Africa, there is to-day not enough water to support a herd of buffaloes either in the Molopo river or anywhere to the south of it, throughout Bechwanaland.

During the quarter of a century succeeding the year 1871 (during which I first visited South Africa) the range of the buffalo had been very much curtailed, but up to 1896 these animals were still numerous in many of the uninhabited parts of the country, and especially so in the Pungwe river district of South-East Africa. In the early part of that most fatal year, however, the terrible epidemic of rinderpest crossed the Zambesi, and besides depleting nearly the whole of South Africa of cattle before a stop was put to its ravages by Dr. Koch, almost absolutely exterminated the buffaloes. The few that remain will probably be gradually killed off, I am afraid, and I think it quite likely that before many more years have passed the only buffaloes left in South Africa will be those living in the Addo bush in the Cape Colony.

There was always a considerable difference of opinion amongst South African hunters in the old pre-rinderpest times as to the character of the Cape buffalo, but there is no doubt that this animal was looked upon by all experienced men as a dangerous antagonist under certain conditions, whilst by some it was considered to be the most dangerous of all African game. It is all a matter of individual experience. A man who has shot two or three lions and a few buffaloes, and who, whilst having had no trouble with the former animals, has been charged and perhaps only narrowly escaped with his life from one or more of the latter, will naturally consider the buffalo to be a more dangerous animal than a lion, and vice versa.

Personally I consider that, speaking generally, the South African lion is a much more dangerous animal than the South African buffalo, for not only can a lion hide much more easily and rush on to its antagonist much more quickly than a buffalo, but the former is, I think, much more savage by nature, on the average, than the latter. As regards viciousness I should be inclined to put the buffalo third on the list of dangerous African game, without reckoning the leopard (of which animal I have not had sufficient experience to offer an opinion) and the black rhinoceros (whose true character it seems so difficult to understand); for, whilst putting the lion first, I think the elephant should come second, as I believe that of a hundred elephants shot, a greater proportion will charge than of the same number of buffaloes. However, a charging elephant can almost always be stopped with a bullet, and it is most difficult to stop a charging buffalo; therefore the latter is perhaps actually the more dangerous animal of the two.

To follow a wounded buffalo into a bed of reeds, or into long grass, where it is almost impossible to see it before getting to very close quarters, is a most dangerous, not to say foolhardy, proceeding. It is quite exciting enough to follow one of these animals when wounded into thick bush, but there you have a chance of seeing it as soon as, if not before, it sees you.

I have had a very considerable experience with South African buffaloes, having killed 175 of these animals to my own rifle, and helped to kill at least fifty others. When hunting on the Chobi river in 1877, and again in 1879, I had to shoot a great many buffaloes to supply my native followers with meat, as I did not come across many elephants in either of those years.

During 1877 I killed to my own rifle forty-seven buffaloes, and in 1879 fifty. All these buffaloes, with the exception of five, which I shot when hunting on horseback near the Mababi river in the latter year, were killed on foot, and a large number of them were followed, after having been wounded, into thick bush, and there finally despatched.

If the Cape buffalo was really such a ferocious and diabolically cunning beast as it has often been represented to have been, it seems to me that I have been very badly treated in the way of adventures with these animals. I have, of course, had a few more or less exciting experiences with buffaloes, but they only happened occasionally, and I never thought it necessary to make my will before attacking a herd of these animals. In 1874, when very young and inexperienced, and very badly armed with a clumsy muzzle-loading elephant gun, my horse was tossed and killed by an old bull which I had been chasing, and I afterwards received a blow from one of its horns on the shoulder as I lay on the ground. I was once knocked down, too, by another buffalo, which charged from behind a bush at very close quarters, but I escaped without serious injury. On another occasion an old bull which had been recently mauled by lions, and at which one of my Kafirs had thrown an assegai, put me into a tree, as I had not a gun in my hands, when it charged. I once dodged a charging buffalo by leaping aside when its outstretched nose was quite close to me, and then, swinging myself round a small tree, ran past its hind-quarters; but I was young then, in perfect training and full of confidence in myself. Following on the blood spoor of wounded buffaloes, very cautiously in soft shoes, and holding my rifle at the ready and on full cock, I believe I have often in thick bush just got a shot in, in time to prevent a good many of these animals from charging. I became used to this work, and my eyes, through constant practice, could see a buffalo standing in thick cover as soon as it was possible to do so, and as soon as it could see me. My only clothing, too, in those days used to be a cotton shirt, a soft felt hat, and a pair of shoes. Had I been short-sighted or dull-sighted, and gone blundering into thick jungle after wounded buffaloes, in heavy shooting boots and thick clothes, as inexperienced sportsmen sometimes used to do, I might have met with more adventures than I have done.

Of course, in the pursuit of any kind of big game which becomes dangerous when wounded, accidents will sometimes occur to the most experienced hunters. The Hon. Guy Dawnay, it will be remembered, was killed many years ago in East Africa by a buffalo which he had wounded. This gentleman, whom I met in Matabeleland in 1873, had had a great deal of experience in hunting all kinds of African game before meeting with the accident which cost him his life, and was an exceptionally athletic young Englishman.

In all my experience I can only remember one wounded buffalo, when being followed through open forest, charging from a distance of perhaps a hundred yards, but lions when chased on horseback will often, even before they have been fired at, turn and charge from even a greater distance.

When wounded in open country a buffalo will always make for thick cover. Before it reaches this, it will perhaps see you several times following on its tracks. It will then stop, turn, and, with head raised and outstretched nose, stand looking at you for a few seconds, but if able to do so will almost invariably gallop off again. When it has reached the retreat for which it is making, it will presently halt, but unless very badly wounded will not lie down for some time. Personally, I have never known a wounded buffalo to circle round and then stand watching near its own tracks for its approaching enemies; but I can imagine that one of these animals when wounded might go zigzagging about in a thick piece of jungle, and, without any fixed intention of waylaying its pursuers, might be just about to cross its own tracks at the very point these latter had reached when following on its spoor. Then it would almost certainly charge, with a good chance of scoring a success.

My own experience has been that in thick cover wounded buffaloes usually stood behind a bush at right angles to their tracks. In such a position, standing quite motionless, they were very difficult to see, whilst they had every chance of hearing or seeing anything approaching on their spoor before being themselves observed. In such cases they would nearly always be broadside on to the hunter, and if one's eyes were trained to pick up game quickly in all kinds of surroundings, there would be time to get a shot in before the wounded animals swung round and started on their charge. Struck in this way with a heavy bullet somewhere near the junction of the neck and the shoulder before the charge had actually commenced, a wounded buffalo would run off again. Once, however, a buffalo is actually charging, no bullet will turn or stop it, unless its brain is pierced or its neck or one of its legs broken. A charging buffalo comes on grunting loudly, with outstretched nose and horns laid back on its neck, and does not lower its head to strike until close up to its enemy. The outstretched nose of the buffalo which killed my horse was within a few inches of my leg before it dipped its head, and, with a sweeping blow, inflicted a fearful wound in the poor animal's flank.

I once hit a charging buffalo at a distance of perhaps thirty yards, right in the chest, with a round bullet fired from an old four-bore elephant gun. This bullet just grazed this old bull's heart, cutting a groove through one side of it, and then, after traversing the whole length of its body, lodged under the skin of one of its hind-legs; yet this brave and determined animal still came on, and struck a blow at a Kafir who was trying to climb a tree close beside me. It then, after running only a short distance farther, lay down and died. Almost always when a buffalo is dying it gives vent to a moaning bellow, which can be heard at a considerable distance. It is a sound which, once heard, can never be forgotten.

On June 24, 1877, I had a somewhat curious experience with a buffalo on the banks of the Chobi river. Some natives came to my camp on the morning of that day and informed me that there were three old buffalo bulls in the thick bush along the river's edge only a few hundred yards away, and at the same time begged me to try and shoot them, as they and their people were very badly off for food. Yielding to their entreaties, I at once went after the buffaloes, and, putting my Bushmen spoorers on their fresh tracks, soon came up with them in some thickish bush, and killed two of them with consecutive shots from a single-barrelled ten-bore rifle. The third ran off towards the river, and I dashed after him in hot pursuit. Just along the edge of the bush, and fringing the open ground which skirted the reedy swamp, through which the river ran at this point, there grew a fringe of palmetto scrub, the large leaves of which hung over to the ground. Into this the buffalo dashed, and I followed close behind him. I thought he had gone through the palmetto scrub, into which one could not see a yard, into the open ground beyond, and so never slackened my pace, but went at it at full speed; but the old bull had halted suddenly, and was standing still behind the screen formed by the overhanging leaves of one of the palmetto bushes. He could only just have turned himself broadside to listen when I ran full tilt into him, and was thrown on the ground flat on my back by the violence of the impact. Probably the buffalo was as much surprised as I was. At any rate, he never stopped to see what had happened, but galloped off again across the open ground on the other side of the palmetto scrub and plunged into the reeds.

Men who hunted big game in South Africa at a time when that country was worth living in, are often charged with wastefully slaughtering large numbers of wild animals. Every one must answer this charge for himself. Personally I do not plead guilty. I never killed any animal for mere sport; but it was often necessary to shoot what may seem to any one who does not realise the circumstances an extravagant amount of game in order not only to supply one's own followers with food, but also to gain the goodwill of the natives of the country in which one was travelling. I find an entry in my diary for August 20, 1879: "Shot six buffalo bulls." That without explanation seems a big order. But, as it happened, on the previous evening I had met my friends Collison and Miller on the banks of the Chobi, and found them both down with fever, and their native followers without food. The next day it was necessary for me to shoot enough meat not only to supply the immediate wants of more than fifty men, but to take them to the waggons on the Mababi river, which was several days' journey distant.

Taking up the spoor of a big herd of buffaloes, I killed six fine bulls, not one ounce of meat of any one of which was wasted. Incidentally I may say that I killed these six buffalo bulls with ten shots from a single-barrelled ten-bore rifle, using round bullets and six drachms of powder. I had no kind of adventure with any one of these animals. Another entry for December 6 in the same year stands: "Nine Burchell's zebras; two eland bulls." These animals were killed soon after leaving the Mababi for Bamangwato, and without the supply of meat thus obtained it would have gone very hard with the large number of Khama's people who were travelling with me, and who were almost entirely dependent upon me for food. Khama thanked me very heartily on my return to Bamangwato for the assistance I had given to his people.

To return to buffaloes, old bulls are often said to be very bad tempered and liable to charge without the slightest provocation. Many instances can, no doubt, be cited of men having suddenly been charged and either killed or badly maimed by one of these animals. If all these cases, however, had been thoroughly investigated, I believe it would have been found that such unprovoked attacks had for the most part been made by wounded animals lying in thick cover or long grass, which were suffering from injuries inflicted either by lions or by human hunters. Such animals would naturally be morose and dangerous to approach.

I have not shot many buffaloes when hunting on horseback, as in my time these animals were seldom found except in countries infested by the tse-tse fly, which fatally affects horses and cattle. However, I have galloped after at least a dozen herds of buffaloes, riding alongside of them and continually dismounting and firing at one or other of their number. Only on one occasion did an unwounded buffalo leave the herd and charge me. This was a cow which gave me a smart chase for perhaps a hundred yards. It is astonishing at what a speed a buffalo can run when charging. It certainly takes a good horse to get away from one, although when following a herd of buffaloes on horseback one can easily keep alongside of them at a hand-gallop. Even on foot I never found any difficulty in keeping up with a herd of buffaloes and shooting as many as I required to supply my native followers with food. But, of course, the life I led at that time, and the continual hard walking and running necessary to earn my living, kept me in perfect training.

In the interior of South Africa, where the nights are very cold in the winter-time, buffaloes used to get fairly abundant but never thick coats when in their prime. The calves, which were born during January, February, and March, were, when very young, covered with soft hair of a reddish brown colour, but as they grew, the reddish tinge gradually disappeared and they became dun coloured. They did not turn black until they were fully three years of age. The hair of the Cape buffalo when full-grown was always quite black and very coarse. The large ears were bordered with long fringes of soft black hair, and the end of the tail carried a good-sized tassel. When old, both bull and cow buffaloes lost most of their hair, first on the middle of the back; but the baldness gradually increased until very old animals of this species became almost as hairless as a rhinoceros.

In the early 'seventies buffaloes were everywhere very plentiful along the Zambesi and its tributaries, but nowhere so abundant as along the Chobi river. So numerous were they along both banks of this river, that one would have thought that they had reached the very limits of their food-supply. They were usually found consorting together in herds of from fifty or sixty to two or three hundred individuals. Once I saw what I think must have been several large herds collected together, as the total number of the troop could not have been less than a thousand. A grass fire had probably destroyed the pasture on the ground where several herds had lately been living, and they were all moving up the river together in search of food. In districts where buffaloes were plentiful, old bulls, which had either been driven from the herds by younger animals or had voluntarily retired from a society which bored them, would often be encountered either alone or two or three together. But along the Chobi I have often seen from five to ten old buffalo bulls consorting together, and I once saw as many as fifteen very old males in one troop.

Where the country had not been much disturbed, such old buffalo bulls were very slow about getting out of one's way, and would stand calmly watching the approach of so unaccustomed a visitor to their haunts as a human being without showing any sign of fear. Their demeanour was indeed apparently aggressive and truculent; still, although I have walked up to or close past a very large number in the aggregate of old buffalo bulls, I have never known one to charge before being interfered with. With outstretched noses these formidable-looking creatures would stand gazing at one with sullen eyes from under their massive rugged horns, and would not sometimes run off before sticks and stones were thrown at them; but in my experience they always did run off sooner or later. African buffaloes are, after all, nothing but wild cattle. My Matabele boys used frequently to speak of them as "Izinkomo ka M'limo" ("God's cattle"). I have walked past thousands and thousands of them, and have never known one to charge when unprovoked. But when a buffalo which has been mauled by lions or wounded by some hunter, and is lying sick and sore in long grass or thick bush, suddenly sees a number of human beings advancing towards its retreat, it will very likely jump up and charge through them, inflicting perhaps a deadly blow with one of its massive crooked horns as it passes. Once a buffalo has been wounded and gets into thick jungle or reeds or long grass, it becomes a most dangerous animal, especially to an inexperienced sportsman who has not yet acquired the art of seeing an animal standing motionless in the shade of dense bush as soon as it is physically possible to do so, and who cannot walk noiselessly on the tracks of wounded game.

It has often been stated that on the approach of a herd of elephants to drink at a pool of water, all other animals will at once retire and make way for them. Very likely this may be true as a general rule, but I remember one occasion upon which a herd of some thirty elephants coming down to drink at a vley early in the night, and finding a large herd of buffaloes at the water before them, waited until these latter animals had quenched their thirst and fed slowly off into the forest before themselves going down to the pool.

This happened on a night in November 1873, when the moon, nearly at the full, was shining in a cloudless sky.

I was camped near a fine vley of fresh rain-water in the country to the west of the river Gwai, in Matabeleland, and had just finished my evening meal, when a large herd of buffaloes came to drink, and had hardly reached the water when we saw a troop of elephants approaching. These latter passed very near to my encampment, and must have seen our fires, as one after another they faced towards us, and stood looking in our direction with outspread ears. They did not, however, get our wind, and though they must have been suspicious, they were, I suppose, very thirsty. But as long as the buffaloes remained on the open ground round the pool of water, the elephants did not advance, remaining about a hundred yards away, just within the edge of a thin forest of mopani trees. Directly, however, the buffaloes had fed away into the forest on the other side of the vley, the greater beasts advanced very quickly to the water's edge, and, arranging themselves in a row, stood for a long time sucking up the grateful fluid through their trunks. As they were all cows and young animals, and there were some fine bulls in the district, I did not disturb them. Of course, I cannot say whether or no the buffaloes were aware of the proximity of the elephants, but I am quite certain that the latter not only saw and smelt the wild cattle, but waited until they had retired before themselves advancing to the water.