Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/300

 Batlapin country, I expected soon to enter upon the small territory belonging to the Mamusa Korannas.

Turning our course due north on the 14th, we found ourselves on another extensive plain, overgrown with bushes. Several heavy showers fell, and at last induced us to make a halt; but the sight of a number of antelopes darting about among the marethwa-bushes was too tempting to be resisted, and I started out for a chase. This proved a more troublesome matter than I had anticipated. To avoid the bushes, I had to twist my horse about continually; and this I found so discouraging that I thought I might venture to change my tactics, and make a bold dash straight ahead. My horse had hardly begun to bound forward when he came to a sudden pause; failing to leap over a mimosa, he had plunged into the middle of it. I endeavoured to pull him back, but the sharp double thorns ran into him so much the more. The poor creature began to kick violently, and snorting aloud, only got more deeply imbedded in the prickles. My clothes began to suffer considerably in the struggle, and glad enough I was when the horse contrived to extricate its hind-quarters from the bush. I threw my gun upon the ground and managed to alight, and finally to drag the excited animal clear away; but my face, my arms, my neck, even my legs, were all smarting violently; and when I made my way back to the waggon, I was only to be compared to the triumphant hero of a cat-fight. I am not likely to forget my experience of that