Providence and my good horse, over big rocks, fallen
trees, thick kittar thorns, and grass ten feet high,
with the two infernal animals in full chase only a
few feet behind me. I heard their abominable
whiffing close to me, but so did my horse also,
and the good old hunter flew over obstacles that
I should have thought impossible, and he dashed
straight under the hooked thorn bushes and doubled
like a hare. The aggageers were all scattered;
Mahomet No. 2 was knocked over by a rhinoceros;
all the men were sprawling upon the rocks with
their guns, and the party was entirely discomfited.
Having passed the kittar thorn, I turned, and seeing
that the beasts had gone straight on, I brought
Aggahr’s head round, and tried to give chase, but
it was perfectly impossible; it was only a wonder
that the horse had escaped in ground so difficult
for riding. Although my clothes were of the
strongest and coarsest Arab cotton cloth, which
seldom tore, but simply lost a thread when caught
in a thorn, I was nearly naked. My blouse was
reduced to shreds ; as I wore sleeves only half way
from the shoulder to the elbow, my naked arms
were streaming with blood ; fortunately my hunting
cap was secured with a chin strap, and still more
fortunately I had grasped the horse’s neck, otherwise
I must have been dragged out of the saddle by
the hooked thorns. All the men were cut and
bruised, some having fallen upon their heads among
the rocks, and others had hurt ' their leOg s in fallinOg
in their endeavours to escape. Mahomet No. 2,
the horse-keeper, was more frightened than hurt,
as he had been knocked down by the shoulder
and not by the horn of the rhinoceros, as the
animal had not noticed him ; its attention was
absorbed by the horse.
I determined to set fire to the whole country
immediately, and descending the hill towards the
river to obtain a favourable wind, I put my men in
a line, extending over about a mile along the river’s
bed, and they fired the grass in different places.
With a loud roar, the flame leapt high in air and
rushed forward with astonishing velocity ; the grass
was as inflammable as tinder, and the strong north
wind drove the long line of fire spreading in every
direction through the country.
We now crossed to the other side of the river
to avoid the flames, and we returned towards the
camp. On the way, I made a long shot and badly
wounded a tétel, but lost it in thick thorns ; shortly
after, I stalked a nellut (A. Strepsiceros), and bagged
it with the Fletcher rifle.
We arrived early in camp, and on the following
day we moved sixteen miles farther up stream,
and camped under a tamarind tree by the side of
the river. No European had ever been farther than
our last camp Delladilla, and that spot had only
been visited by Johann Schmidt and Florian. In
the previous year, my aggageers had sabred some
of the Basé at this very camping-place ; they