Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/63

 and fell forward. His rifle was at full cock, ready for action; his finger slipped and touched the trigger; the bullet absolutely grazed my neck. Another eighth of an inch and I must have been killed on the spot.

To explore the neighbourhood, we remained for a few days upon the banks of the Notuany. I first went southwards down to the confluence of the river with the Limpopo. In striking contrast to the time of my previous visit, when the entire district seemed teeming with game, I had now to wait long under the shade of the mimosas before getting any sport at all; at length a solitary gazelle bounded out of the grass in front of me, and as I was all ready with a charge of hare-shot, I soon put an end to its graceful career. Some Masarwas, dependents of Sechele, residing in the wood close at hand, brought me some pallah-skins, of which I made a purchase.

The shores both of the lower Marico and the Limpopo are composed of granite, gneiss, and grey and red sandstone, the last often containing flints; these rocks sometimes assume very grotesque forms; one, for example, on the bank of the Limpopo, being called “The Cardinal’s Hat;” occasionally they contain also greenstone and ferruginous limestone. To the first spruit running into the Notuany above the Limpopo I gave the name of Purkyne’s Spruit. Some of the mimosas here were ten feet in circumference; here and there I noticed some vultures’ nests, and the trees were the habitat of many birds, amongst which we noticed Bubo Verreauxii and maculosus, Coracias caudata and C. nuchalis and parrots.

I left the Notuany a day sooner than I intended,