In all my hunting experience I cannot remember ever seeing such a sight as that which followed.  Out of the vlei rushed the buffalo by dozens, every one of them making remarks in its own language as it came.  They jammed in the narrow roadway, they leapt on to each other’s backs.  They squealed, they kicked, they bellowed.  They charged my friendly rock till I felt it shake.  They knocked over Scowl’s mimosa thorn, and would have shot him out of his eagle’s nest had not its flat top fortunately caught in that of another and less accessible tree.  And with them came clouds of pungent smoke, mixed with bits of burning reed and puffs of hot air.

It was over at last.  With the exception of some calves, which had been trampled to death in the rush, the herd had gone.  Now, like the Roman emperor—­I think he was an emperor—­I began to wonder what had become of my legions.

“Umbezi,” I shouted, or, rather, sneezed through the smoke, “are you dead, Umbezi?”

“Yes, yes, Macumazahn,” replied a choking and melancholy voice from the top of the rock, “I am dead, quite dead.  That evil spirit of a silwana [i.e. wild beast] has killed me.  Oh! why did I think I was a hunter; why did I not stop at my kraal and count my cattle?”

“I am sure I don’t know, you old lunatic,” I answered, as I scrambled up the rock to bid him good-bye.

It was a rock with a razor top like the ridge of a house, and there, hanging across this ridge like a pair of nether garments on a clothes-line, I found the “Eater-up-of-Elephants.”

“Where did he get you, Umbezi?” I asked, for I could not see his wounds because of the smoke.

“Behind, Macumazahn, behind!” he groaned, “for I had turned to fly, but, alas! too late.”

“On the contrary,” I replied, “for one so heavy you flew very well; like a bird, Umbezi, like a bird.”

“Look and see what the evil beast has done to me, Macumazahn.  It will be easy, for my moocha has gone.”

So I looked, examining Umbezi’s ample proportions with care, but could discover nothing except a large smudge of black mud, as though he had sat down in a half-dried puddle.  Then I guessed the truth.  The buffalo’s horns had missed him.  He had been struck only with its muddy nose, which, being almost as broad as that portion of Umbezi with which it came in contact, had inflicted nothing worse than a bruise.  When I was sure he had received no serious injury, my temper, already sorely tried, gave out, and I administered to him the soundest smacking—­his position being very convenient—­that he had ever received since he was a little boy.

“Get up, you idiot!” I shouted, “and let us look for the others.  This is the end of your folly in making me attack a herd of buffalo in reeds.  Get up.  Am I to stop here till I choke?”

“Do you mean to tell me that I have no mortal wound, Macumazahn?” he asked, with a return of cheerfulness, accepting the castigation in good part, for he was not one who bore malice.  “Oh, I am glad to hear it, for now I shall live to make those cowards who fired the reeds sorry that they are not dead; also to finish off that wild beast, for I hit him, Macumazahn, I hit him.”