While Down Below I Joined Three Natives For The Purpose Of Seeing This Last Sport.

They all rode shod horses, and had lassoes of ox hide attached to the horns of their saddles.

I sat for an hour on horseback on a rocky hill while they hunted the woods; then I heard the deep voices of bulls, and a great burst of cattle appeared, with hunters in pursuit, but the herd vanished over a dip of the hill side, and the natives joined me. By this time I wished myself safely at home, partly because my unshod horse was not fit for galloping over lava and rough ground, and I asked the men where I should stay to be out of danger. The leader replied, "Oh, just keep close behind me!" I had thought of some safe view-point, not of galloping on an unshod horse with a ruck of half maddened cattle, but it was the safest plan, and there was no time to be lost, for as we rode slowly down, we sighted the herd dodging across the open to regain the shelter of the wood, and much on the alert.

Putting our horses into a gallop we dashed down the hill till we were close up with the chase; then another tremendous gallop, and a brief wild rush, the grass shaking with the surge of cattle and horses. There was much whirling of tails and tearing up of the earth - a lasso spun three or four times round the head of the native who rode in front of me, and almost simultaneously a fine red bullock lay prostrate on the earth, nearly strangled, with his foreleg noosed to his throat.

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