Nearly every morning of
our journey to come we enjoyed this wonderful vision for an hour or so.
Then the mists closed in. The rest of the day showed us a grayish sky
along the western horizon, with apparently nothing behind it.
In the meantime we were tramping steadily ahead over the desert;
threading the thorn scrub, crossing the wide shallow grass-grown swales;
spying about us for signs of game. At the end of three or four miles we
came across some ostrich and four hartebeeste. This encouraged us to
think we might find other game soon, for the hartebeeste is a gregarious
animal. Suddenly we saw a medium-sized squat beast that none of us
recognized, trundling along like a badger sixty yards ahead. Any
creature not easily identified is a scientific possibility in Africa.
Therefore we fired at once. One of the bullets hit his foreleg paw.
Immediately this astonishing small creature turned and charged us! If
his size had equalled his ferocity, he would have been a formidable
opponent. We had a lively few minutes. He rushed us again and again,
uttering ferocious growls. We had to step high and lively to keep out of
his way. Between charges he sat down and tore savagely at his wounded
paw. We wanted him as nearly perfect a specimen as possible, so tried to
rap him over the head with a club. Owing to remarkably long teeth and
claws, this was soon proved impracticable; so we shot him.
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