My Men Quickly Began To Dig Sand-Wells With
Their Hands, Until The Main Body Of The Troops And Cattle Arrived.
In about an hour, I heard a great hubbub, with a noise of quarrelling
and shouting; every one was running towards the spot.
It appeared that a
wild buffalo, being ignorant of our arrival, had suddenly visited his
drinking-place, and had thoughtlessly descended the deep and narrow
gorge to drink his evening draught. The Lobores had espied him, and they
immediately rushed down and overwhelmed him with lances from the cliffs
above. There was now an extraordinary scene over the carcase; four
hundred men scrambling over a mass of blood and entrails, fighting and
tearing with each other, and cutting off pieces of flesh with their
lance-heads, with which they escaped as dogs may retreat with a stolen
bone.
On 4th March we started at 6.25 A.M. The advent of the buffalo was a sad
misfortune, as it had supplied the natives with sufficient flesh to feed
them on the road home; thus thirty Lobores had absconded during the
night.
Fortunately we had already consumed many loads of flour. I was now
obliged to divide two days rations among the troops as extra weight. The
light loads were then doubled. Brandy boxes of twelve bottles were now
lashed together, so as to form a load of twenty-four. Several boxes of
gin had been entirely destroyed by the savage carriers, who had allowed
them to fall upon the rocks.
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