Yet it is possible even here to be alone. The high walls of grass on either side of the jungle path seem to the traveller to be the boundaries of the world. At times a strange stillness pervades the air, and no sound is heard from bird or beast or living thing. In the midst of this stillness, interruptions come like surprises and sometimes in not a very pleasant form. Once while Dr. Livingstone was walking in a reverie, he was startled by a female rhinoceros, followed by her calf, coming thundering down along the narrow path, and he had barely time to jump into a thicket in order to escape its charge. Occasionally a panic stricken herd of buffaloes will make a rush through the centre of the line of porters and donkeys, scattering them in wild confusion into the bush and tossing perhaps the nearest man and animal into the air. Neither the buffalo nor any other wild animal, however, will attack a human being except when driven to an extremity. The lion or leopard, when watching for their prey, will perhaps spring on the man who passes by. The buffalo, if it thinks it is being surrounded, will make a mad charge to escape, or the elephant, if wounded and brought to bay, or in defense of its young, will turn on its pursuers. A “rogue” elephant or buffalo, who has been turned out of the herd by his fellows for some fault or blemish, and has become cross and ill-natured by his solitary life, has been known to make an unprovoked attack on the first creature, man or beast, that presents itself to his sight. Thus, one savage “rogue” buffalo, furiously charged a native of Livingstone’s party, in the ascent of the Zambesi in 1860, and the man had barely time to escape into a tree when the huge head of the beast came crashing against the trunk with a shock fit to crack both skull and tree. Backing again, he came with another rush, and thus continued to beat the tree until seven shots were fired into him. [Illustration: CHARGE OF A BUFFALO.] But as a rule, every untamed creature flees in terror on sighting red-handed man. [Illustration: NATIVE SLAVE HUNTERS.]