Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/119

 be able to keep awake, he told me he had not the least doubt on that point.

About an hour or two before sunset I saw that a thoroughly good enclosure was made round the waggon, and Theunissen undertook to keep a good look-out against lions. I and Pit then made our way towards the spot which I had already selected in a forest glade about 500 yards in circumference, partially overgrown with grass, and about ten feet above the level of the woods; in the centre was a small rain-pool that had been full of water some months back, but was now much covered with weeds, and nearly empty. Near the edge of the glade stood a fine hardekool-tree, and about fifteen yards from this was an Acacia detinens thirty feet high, of which the branches drooped nearly to the ground, and partly sheltered and partly supported a great ant-hill at its side. Altogether the place seemed well adapted for my purpose.

The first thing I made Pit do was to collect some of the branches of the trees, to make a sort of breastwork about two feet high; we reserved an open space of eight feet or more of bare plain between ourselves and the tall grass; and then we carefully examined our guns and put them in perfect readiness for use. The sun was now sinking, and all the birds had gone to roost except a few glossy starlings that kept twittering around the nests which they occupy all through the year. Pit offered a piece of advice which I thought it advisable to follow, and we left our retreat before it was absolutely dark to fetch some branches of acacia to throw over the enclosure as a light covering, and while we were doing this the howling of the jackals at no great