As Mahina Was Not Doing This
As Skilfully Or As Quickly As I Thought It Might Be
Done, And Seemed Unable To Pierce The Tough Hide,
I Handed Him My Rifle And Took The Knife In
Order To Do It Myself.
Just as I raised the knife
to strike, I was startled by the wildebeeste
suddenly jumping to his feet.
For a moment
he stood looking at me in a dazed and tottery
kind of way, and then to my amazement he
turned and made off. At first he moved with
such a shaky and uncertain gait that I felt
confident that he could only go a few yards
before dropping; so, as I did not wish to disturb
the other game around us by firing a second
shot, I thought it best just to wait. To my
utter astonishment, however, after he had
staggered for about sixty yards he seemed to
revive suddenly, broke into his ordinary gallop
and quickly rejoined the herd. From that time
I lost all trace of him, though I followed up
for four or five miles.
The wildebeeste, in fact, is like Kipling's
Fuzzy-Wuzzy - "'e's generally shammin' when
'e's dead"; and my friend Rawson about this
time had an experience very similar to mine,
but attended with more serious results. He had
knocked his wildebeeste over in much the same
way, and thought it was dead; and as he was
very keen on obtaining photographs of game,
he took his stand-camera from the Indian who
carried it and proceeded to focus it on the animal's
head.
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