know which of them looked the most frightened. Presently Gobo touched my
leg; I glanced round, and saw him pointing slantwise towards the left.
I lifted my head a little and peeped over a mass of creepers; beyond the
creepers was a dense bush of sharp-pointed aloes, of that kind of which
the leaves project laterally, and on the other side of the aloes, not
fifteen paces from us, I made out the horns, neck, and the ridge of the
back of a tremendous old bull. I took my eight-bore, and getting on
to my knee prepared to shoot him through the neck, taking my chance of
cutting his spine. I had already covered him as well as the aloe leaves
would allow, when he gave a kind of sigh and lay down.

"I looked round in dismay. What was to be done now? I could not see
to shoot him lying down, even if my bullet would have pierced the
intervening aloes--which was doubtful--and if I stood up he would either
run away or charge me. I reflected, and came to the conclusion that the
only thing to do was to lie down also; for I did not fancy wandering
after other buffaloes in that dense bush. If a buffalo lies down, it
is clear that he must get up again some time, so it was only a case of
patience--'fighting the fight of sit down,' as the Zulus say.

"Accordingly I sat down and lighted a pipe, thinking that the smell of
it might reach the buffalo and make him get up. But the wind was the
wrong way, and it did not; so when it was done I lit another. Afterwards
I had cause to regret that pipe.

"Well, we squatted like this for between half and three quarters of an
hour, till at length I began to grow heartily sick of the performance.
It was about as dull a business as the last hour of a comic opera.
I could hear buffaloes snorting and moving all round, and see the
red-beaked tic birds flying up off their backs, making a kind of hiss