But it was possible that in our excitement we might have crossed the waggon track which the lager was to follow; then the lager would be far to the right. Standing thus like the ass between two bundles of hay, I was not in the mood to think lightly of my case, but had to act at once, so I chose the safest and more probable of the two sides of my right angle--namely, the left, as I would then in any case not be moving towards Portuguese territory, and could always turn to the Krokodil River. I felt pretty certain now, as it was more probable that we had not crossed the old waggon tract, and every moment I expected to hear the switching of the long whips. But when I had gone some distance I was obliged to return to the donga, and retrace my way to the place where we had slept. A clever Boer would have succeeded in finding the way back, but I soon lost my way altogether. I lost the traces of the horse's hoofs, and the dongas looked to me so different that in one place where a donga branched off I did not know which to follow. An intense feeling of desolation took possession of me. Lost in a wilderness without food or water! I thought of the twelve or thirteen men who got lost in this wood on a hunting expedition, and of whom only one was saved. A great fear came upon me. Gradually I became calmer, and tried to form some plan of action. I resolved to keep to the left, where I had already seen a solitary mountain. Perhaps water was to be found there. My gun was loaded with Dum-Dum bullets, specially prepared for bucks. I had filed through the steel to the lead, so that the bullet would expand at once when it came into contact with bone. I found a buck tame in its very wildness, but I missed it, for the aim of my gun, a fine sporting Mauser, had been bent by the branches of the trees. It was a good thing that I did not come across a lion, or, rather, that a lion did not come across me. I had to ride under trees, through shrubs and grass, and had to keep a sharp look-out, as the king of beasts sometimes takes the lords of creation unawares. And I had to look out for an opportunity to shoot a buck--the only food within my reach. The nearer I came to the mountain, the surer I was that I had lost my way completely, and the more I became reconciled to my fate. I planned how I should build a large fire in the night for myself and my horse, and how I should defend myself against a lion with a burning piece of wood. Suddenly my horse went faster and pushed to the left. Greatly to my astonishment, I saw that the attraction was a little stream of water that he had scented in a donga. I off-saddled, and let my horse graze in the luxuriant grass.