so I chose the safest and more probable of the two sides of my right
angle--namely, the left, as I would then in any case not be moving
towards Portuguese territory, and could always turn to the Krokodil
River.

I felt pretty certain now, as it was more probable that we had not
crossed the old waggon tract, and every moment I expected to hear the
switching of the long whips. But when I had gone some distance I was
obliged to return to the donga, and retrace my way to the place where we
had slept. A clever Boer would have succeeded in finding the way back,
but I soon lost my way altogether. I lost the traces of the horse's
hoofs, and the dongas looked to me so different that in one place where
a donga branched off I did not know which to follow. An intense feeling
of desolation took possession of me. Lost in a wilderness without food
or water! I thought of the twelve or thirteen men who got lost in this
wood on a hunting expedition, and of whom only one was saved. A great
fear came upon me. Gradually I became calmer, and tried to form some
plan of action. I resolved to keep to the left, where I had already seen
a solitary mountain. Perhaps water was to be found there.

My gun was loaded with Dum-Dum bullets, specially prepared for bucks. I
had filed through the steel to the lead, so that the bullet would expand
at once when it came into contact with bone. I found a buck tame in its
very wildness, but I missed it, for the aim of my gun, a fine sporting
Mauser, had been bent by the branches of the trees. It was a good thing
that I did not come across a lion, or, rather, that a lion did not come
across me.

I had to ride under trees, through shrubs and grass, and had to keep a
sharp look-out, as the king of beasts sometimes takes the lords of