Leaving Fundi, I,
With Memba Sasa, Stalked Down To Them.
We crawled and crept by
inches flat to the ground, which was so hot that it fairly burned
the hand.
The sun beat down on us fiercely, and the air was close
and heavy even among the scanty grass tufts in which we were
trying to get cover. It was very hard work indeed, but after a
half hour of it we gained a thin bush not over thirty yards from
a half dozen dark and indeterminate bodies dozing in the very
centre of a brush patch. Cautiously I wiped the sweat from my
eyes and raised my glasses. It was slow work and patient work,
picking out and examining each individual beast from the mass.
Finally the job was done. I let fall my glasses.
"Monumookee y'otey-all cows," I whispered to Memba Sasa.
We backed out of there inch by inch, with intention of circling a
short distance to the leeward, and then trying the herd again
lower down. But some awkward slight movement, probably on my
part, caught the eye of one of those blessed cows. She threw up
her head; instantly the whole thicket seemed alive with beasts.
We could hear them crashing and stamping, breaking the brush,
rushing headlong and stopping again; we could even catch
momentary glimpses of dark bodies. After a few minutes we saw the
mass of the herd emerge from the thicket five hundred yards away
and flow up over the hill.
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