I do not know how long I slept, but suddenly I was roused by a terrific bellowing. When I opened my eyes Ghond, who was already awake, undid the rope around me and pointed below. In the faint light of the dawn at first I saw nothing, but I heard distinctly the groaning and grunting of an angry beast. In the tropics the day breaks rapidly. I looked down most intently. Now in the growing light of day I saw.... There could be no two opinions about what I saw. Yes, there was a hillock of shining jet rubbing its dark side against the tree on which we sat. It was about ten feet long, I surmised, though half of its bulk was covered by the leaves and boughs of the trees. The beast looked like a black opal coming out of a green furnace, such was the glitter of the newly grown foliage under the morning sun. I thought, the buffalo that in nature looks healthy and silken, in a Zoo is a mangy creature with matted mane and dirty skin. Can those who see bisons in captivity ever conceive how beautiful they can be? What a pity that most young people instead of seeing one animal in nature--which is worth a hundred in any Zoo--must derive their knowledge of God's creatures from their appearance in prisons. If we cannot perceive any right proportion of man's moral nature by looking at prisoners in a jail, how do we manage to think that we know all about an animal by gazing at him penned in a cage? However, to return to that murderous buffalo at the foot of our tree. Gay-Neck was freed from under my tunic and left to roam on the tree, which Ghond and I descended by a number of branches like the rungs of a ladder, till we reached a branch that was about two feet above the buffalo. He did not see us. Ghond swiftly tied around the tree trunk one end of the long lassoo. I noticed that the buffalo was playing underneath by putting his horns now and then through a tattered garment, what was left of Ghond's clothes. No doubt the odour of man in them had attracted him. Though his horns were clean, there were marks of fresh blood on his head. Apparently he had gone to the village and killed another person during the night. That roused Ghond. He whispered into my ear: "We shall get him alive. You slip this lassoo over his horns from above." In a trice Ghond had leaped off the branch near the rear of the buffalo. That startled the beast. But he could not turn round, for close to his right was a tree which I mentioned before, and to his left was the tree on which I stood. He had to go back or forward between the twins in order to get out from them, but before this happened I had flung the lassoo over his head. The touch of the rope acted like electricity upon him. He hastened backwards, in order to slip off the lassoo, so fast that Ghond, had he not already gone around the next tree, would have been trampled and cut to death by the sharp hoofs of the beast. But now to my utter consternation, I noticed that