He consoled me, however, by saying "he should not have fired at me unless he knew that the elephants were a long way off." We had stood listening one to the other for about three minutes, and the bird that flew past had given the alarm to Monyosi. How would some of my friends compete in war singly with black men like this? But fancy one hundred such against perhaps twenty young soldiers inexperienced in the colonial cunning, and laughing contemptuously at the black niggers to whom they are going to give a licking! Many bleached skulls, that do not require one to have the science of Professor Owen to know that they were once tenanted by a spirit recognised in this world as a white man, might tell what was the result of carelessness, and underrating the enemy, and perhaps a little overrating one's own skill. We joined the party which we had met in the bush, and together followed the spoor. I now witnessed one of the rare cases of downright cowardice in a Kaffir. One of this English lad's Kaffirs was a very good hand after buck, but did not aspire to anything more. As we neared the elephants, and heard their rumbling, this black cur shook as though he had an ague, and said he would not go any farther. The English boy told him if he went away he would only have one shot at him, but that he generally drove a bullet pretty straight. This argument the Kaffir seemed to consider a very convincing one, as he kept on with us. The elephants were on the move when we came upon them, and a young bull was quietly walking up a path directly towards us, with a branch held in his trunk. My white companion recommended me not to fire; but, seeing the elephant's shoulder, I sent my two-ounce bullet into it. I turned and ran, but found, after a dozen yards, that the coward Kaffir was in my way. He did not know exactly what to do, and was not moving at that rapid pace which I always considered advisable after wounding an elephant in this dense forest. A bundle of charmed woods was hung round this Kaffir's neck, thick enough to have saved the whole Zulu nation for evermore from savage elephants or hungry lions. Feeling indisposed to jog on behind him, I caught hold of this necklace, which was the only article of attire that he wore, and dragged him back, at the same time slipping in front of him. As I passed him, he turned round with horror depicted in his face, and wildness in his eyes. He just called out, "_Bulula, bulula_!" (Shoot, shoot!) and then came after me: he thought my hand had been the elephant's trunk, and that he was nearly a gone Kaffir. I managed to get a long thorn deep into my knee during my run, which caused such pain that I could not proceed on the spoor. I went a little way, and saw plenty of blood, but gave up the search to the English lad and his two Kaffirs, whilst I with difficulty reached home. I never heard what was the result of the pursuit,--whether they found and killed, or lost.