Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/337

fer to interfere; on the contrary, he clapped his hands, and cried, "Well done, Ammonios," swearing he never saw so equal a match in his life. The unfortunate Ammonios had been driven from tree to tree, till he had got behind one within a few yards of the water; but the brush-wood upon the banks, and his attention to the buffalo, hindered him from seeing how far it was below him. Nothing could be more ridiculous than to see him holding the tree with both his hands, peeping first one way, and then another, to see by which the beast would turn. And well he might be on his guard; for the animal was absolutely mad, tossing up the ground with his feet both before and behind. "Sir, said I, to Ayto Confu, this will be but an ugly joke to-night, if we bring home that man's corpse, killed in the very midst of us, while we were looking on." Saying this, I parted at a canter behind the trees, crying to Ammonios to throw himself into the water, when I should strike the beast; and seeing the buffalo's head turned from me, at full speed I ran the spear into the lower part of his belly, through his whole intestines, till it came out above a foot on the other side, and there I left it, with a view to hinder the buffalo from turning. It was a spear which, though small in the head, had a strong, tough, seasoned shaft, which did not break by striking it against the trees and bushes, and it pained and impeded the animal's motions, till Ammonios quitting the tree, dashed through the bushes with some difficulty, and threw himself into the river. But here a danger occurred that I had not foreseen. The pool was very deep, and Ammonios could not swim; so that though he escaped from the buffalo, he would infallibly have been drowned,