much of his scratching my back with his horny tongue, but he had soon worn through my shirt, which was the only upper garment I had on at the time. Oh Lord! what a sensation it was when first his tongue reached my bare body; it was terrible. But you can easily feel what it was like by taking a coarse rasp and rasping your bare body. My God, I shall never forget that quarter-of-an-hour’s torture I endured that day. It felt as if he was tearing pieces of flesh out of my bare back. Soon the blood was streaming down my sides, and the blood seemed to make him madder than ever. Every time he tore his tongue through my lacerated flesh a shiver of horror and pain passed through my body. I prayed to God as I had never prayed before to let me die. When the horror and pain became too much for me to bear, I fainted. If I had not fainted I suppose I would either have died or gone mad. When I came to myself I was lying on my side; somebody was pouring water over me and down my throat. My companions had looked for me, had discovered my horse and the maddened bull, and shot the latter. They found me in the hole where the bull had been standing engaged in his fiendish work. They thought I was dead. But I recovered, and lived to dread the sight of a wildebeest. I have the horns of that brute still to-day at home. I have been offered £15 for them as they are such a splendid pair, but I will never sell them, and I will never risk a single-handed fight with a wildebeest bull again.’ Steve and his companions felt their hair almost stand on end as they listened to the horrible tale. ‘You were one of our party that day, _Neef Frederick_,’ said the old man, turning to a companion. ‘Have I spoken the truth?’ ‘That you have, Neef; I could take my oath on it,’ was the reply. ‘And what is more, I one day saw my uncle killed by just such another wildebeest. We also had a chase after an old bull. We were three. We shot and wounded him. He turned and stood at bay, and chased my poor old uncle, and as he was in a line with my uncle from us we dared not fire for fear of hitting my uncle. In a moment he came up to the old man, as his horse was not very good, and rather slow. He caught the horse with his horn between the hind legs, and tossed him forwards, hind legs in the air. As the horse was tossed forward my uncle dropped backwards, and was caught upon the horn of the bull. The horn penetrated just under his chin, in an upward direction, passing out on the top of his head. When we came up we shot the bull. But my uncle was a dead man!’ After a little further conversation on the peculiarities of game and their habits, the party broke up, and all retired to bed. CHAPTER XXXIII SCHRIKRIGHIED An early start was made the next day to proceed on their trip, as the plan was not to stay at any one place more than two days so as to enable them to see as many places and people as possible.