lame from the bite of a lion -- up and down, up and down the
oak-panelled vestibule; for there is a vestibule in my house
in England. On all the four walls of this vestibule were placed
pairs of horns -- about a hundred pairs altogether, all of which
I had shot myself. They are beautiful specimens, as I never
keep any horns which are not in every way perfect, unless it
may be now and again on account of the associations connected
with them. In the centre of the room, however, over the wide
fireplace, there was a clear space left on which I had fixed
up all my rifles. Some of them I have had for forty years, old
muzzle-loaders that nobody would look at nowadays. One was an
elephant gun with strips of rimpi, or green hide, lashed round
the stock and locks, such as used to be owned by the Dutchmen
-- a 'roer' they call it. That gun, the Boer I bought it from
many years ago told me, had been used by his father at the battle
of the Blood River, just after Dingaan swept into Natal and slaughtered
six hundred men, women, and children, so that the Boers named
the place where they died 'Weenen', or the 'Place of Weeping';
and so it is called to this day, and always will be called.
And many an elephant have I shot with that old gun. She always
took a handful of black powder and a three-ounce ball, and kicked
like the very deuce.

Well, up and down I walked, staring at the guns and the horns
which the guns had brought low; and as I did so there rose up
in me a great craving: -- I would go away from this place where
I lived idly and at ease, back again to the wild land where I
had spent my life, where I met my dear wife and poor Harry was
born, and so many things, good, bad, and indifferent, had happened
to me. The thirst for the wilderness was on me; I could tolerate