On the forenoon of this day, I rode forth to hunt, accompanied by Ruyter; we held west, skirting the wooded, stony mountains.  The natives had here, many years before, waged successful war with elephants, four of whose skulls I found.  Presently I came across two sassaybies, one of which I knocked over; but, while I was loading, he regained his legs and made off.  We crossed a level stretch of forest, holding a northerly course for an opposite range of green, well-wooded hills and valleys.  Here I came upon a troop of six fine, old bull buffaloes, into which I stalked, and wounded one princely fellow very severely, behind the shoulder, bringing blood from his mouth; he, however, made off with his comrades, and, the ground being very rough, we failed to overtake him.  They held for Ngotwani.  After following the spoor for a couple of miles, we dropped it, as it led right away from camp.

Returning from this chase, we had an adventure with another old bull buffalo, which shows the extreme danger of hunting buffaloes without dogs.  We started him in a green hollow, among the hills, and his course inclining for camp.  I gave him chase.  He crossed the level, broad strath, and made for the opposite densely-wooded range of mountains.  Along the base of these we followed him, sometimes in view, sometimes on the spoor, keeping the old fellow at a pace which made him pant.  At length, finding himself much distressed, he had recourse to a singular stratagem.  Doubling round some thick bushes, which obscured him from our view, he found himself beside a small pool of rain-water, just deep enough to cover his body; into this he walked, and, facing about, lay gently down and awaited our on-coming, with nothing but his old, gray face, and massive horns above the water, and these concealed from view by the overhanging herbage.

[Illustration:  Charge of the buffalo.]

Our attention was entirely engrossed with the spoor, and thus we rode boldly on until within a few feet of him, when, springing to his feet, he made a desperate charge after Ruyter, uttering a low, stifled roar, peculiar to buffaloes, (somewhat similar to the growl of a lion,) and hurled horse and rider to the earth with fearful violence.  His horn laid the poor horse’s haunch open to the bone, making the most fearful rugged wound.  In an instant, Ruyter regained his feet and ran for his life, which the buffalo observing, gave chase, but most fortunately came down, with a tremendous somersault, in the mud, his feet slipping from under him; thus the bushman escaped certain destruction.  The buffalo rose much discomfitted, and, the wounded horse first catching his eye, he went a second time after him; but he got out of the way.  At this moment, I managed to send one of my patent pacificating pills into his shoulder, when he instantly quitted the field of action, and sought shelter in a dense cover on the mountain side, whither I deemed it imprudent to follow him.