Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/303

 “Κia hassibone narri,” (I see no buffalo), I answered, and kept on.

But Chukuru touched me on my shoulder as a sign that I should crouch down; the others took the hint and concealed themselves instantly in the grass.

“Okay?” (where) I asked.

He pointed to four dark objects lying on the ground about 120 yards distant. There could be no mistake. They were four buffaloes. One of them had its head towards me. I took aim and fired; up jumped every one to see the effect. Up sprang the buffaloes, and made off in a gallop. One of them however lagged behind; it rolled over for a moment, but sprang up quickly and overtook the rest; then again it seemed to linger. We had no doubt that it had been wounded, but whether mortally or not we could not tell.

Nothing can exceed the cunning that a buffalo will exhibit when it is wounded or infuriated. Having better powers of discrimination, it is more wary than a hippopotamus, and consequently is not so dangerous to an unarmed man, but once provoked it will fight to the bitter end. It generally makes a little retreat, and conceals itself behind a bush, where it waits for the hunter, and when he comes up makes a dash at him. Attacks of this kind are by no means unfrequent, and huntsmen of considerable experience have been known to be outwitted and seriously injured by these South African buffaloes. Sometimes the angry brute will content itself with tossing its victim into the air, in which case the mischief is generally limited to the dislocation or fracture of a limb, but far more often it