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But now, to my great disappointment, I could find nothing on which to exercise my skill. After a long, hot, circular walk, in the course of which I had not seen a living thing, I found myself once more on the edge of the vlei, within a hundred yards of the wagon. I was so thirsty that I found it impossible to pass the water without drinking.
After that I did not fire any more, for it occurred to me that it was as well not to further advertise my presence. 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.
Half an hour later the four of us who were armed with guns were posted behind rocks on either side of the steep, natural roadway cut by water, which led down to the vlei, and with us some of Umbezi's men. That chief himself was at my side a post of honour which he had insisted upon taking.
There was some very stiff fighting for a few minutes, the natives having the best of the position; indeed they might have wiped us out but for their stupid habit of firing on the run, as they charged. Wilson ordered us to retire down the vlei; some hundred yards further on we came to an ant-heap and took our second position on that, and held it for some time.
To this vlei he proposed to ride forward with one servant only, and to stay there till the others overtook him, shooting the wild things which lived in the place, for to be happy these Englishmen must always be killing something. So he bade me farewell, making me a present of the gold chain which he took off his watch, which chain I still have.
Our first outspan was in the valley of the Zwartkops River, close to a big vlei, which was surrounded by dense, scrubby jungle. I had a small single-barreled rifle, so I loaded this and went off in search of big game. In anticipation of our translation to Africa I had done a good deal of rifle practice at Springfield, and had thus become a fair shot.
Instead of disturbing the herd by making a noise, as we told them, for some reason best known to themselves I expect it was because they were afraid to go into the vlei, where they might meet the horn of a buffalo at any moment they fired the dry reeds in three or four places at once, and this, if you please, with a strong wind blowing from them to us.
We were now getting both hungry and thirsty, for we had exhausted the water we had brought in our bottles. We were convinced, however, that we must be near the vlei, and that some rise in the ground probably hid it from view.
"If you wanted to change your mind, you should have done it before," men and women roared and screamed with many other such bantering words, till at length I felt myself turn the colour of a red vlei lily. So we came at last to where Marie stood, the centre of an admiring circle.
In this pleasant oasis we stayed for three days, resting, recuperating, and living on the fat of the land. Game there was in abundance, so much so, indeed, that they were a cause of anxiety, for the water in the vlei was decreasing rapidly from the number of animals that drank there nightly, and it was obvious that it would not last for very long unless rain fell.
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