A poor young fellow who had come out to shoot, but was utterly unfitted for the work, lost his companion on one of the lower reaches of this river, near where we now were. From the natives’ account, it appeared his friend had fired at a goose, which fell in the river. He stripped to go in after it, though they begged him not, as there were alligators; he would not listen to them and swam out. When two or three yards from the bird he was observed to strike sideways, as if he saw something, and in another instant rearing himself half out of the water, with a cry, he sank. There was no doubt what had happened. I first came across the former of these two travellers in a pass not many days’ trek from Kolobeng, Livingstone’s station; but the interview was a short one, as I was inspanned and on the move. Next morning I found all his men, they were Ba-Quaina and knew me, had followed my waggons, and upon my questioning them they said they really could not stay with that white man, as he starved them. They had found him elephants two or three times, but he never killed any; he only rode after their tails, expecting them to fall off. Of course I insisted on their going back, and shot a rhinoceros on their promise of doing so, just for the present distress. Here was a country swarming with animals, a man with guns and ammunition in abundance, and yet he couldn’t ‘keep his camp.’ I would not blame him for that; but why did he not give up at once when he discovered, as he must soon have done, his utter incapacity? My friend Vardon had interviewed him before he started, at the Cape, I afterwards learnt, and asked him what he had come out for. ‘To shoot a lion,’ he replied. ‘Was that all?’ he was asked; and he replied, ‘Yes; if he did that he should be quite content.’ ‘You’d better have given 200_l._ and shot the one at the Zoo; it would have been cheaper, less trouble, and less dangerous too.’ Poor lad! he picked up another mate and started on another journey, goodness knows what for; and on my second return from the Zouga we found his skull with a bullet-hole through it, and some small articles of dress, near an old camp-fire two or three marches only from where we first met. The hyænas had dragged away the rest of the bones. Rightly or wrongly, his death was attributed to his companion, and strangely enough this man, subsequently joining himself to an expedition, met a similar fate himself. I never could get full particulars of this sad story.