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A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



I never saw an elephant the whole time, and my 

 principal victims were buffaloes, of which animals I 

 shot, I think, forty-five during the four months I was 

 on the Chobe. I experienced a few charges from 

 these animals, and had one rather narrow escape, 

 which, however, I will not inflict upon my readers. 



Though the buffalo of Central South Africa when 

 wounded will usually charge its pursuer if it sees him 

 close at hand, yet, if he is at a distance of over fifty 

 yards, it will only do so in exceptional cases. Although 

 many accidents happen in the pursuit of these animals, 

 yet, in my opinion, the danger incurred in hunting 

 them is marvellously exaggerated. Having shot 

 altogether nearly 200 buffaloes to my own rifle, and 

 followed very many of them when wounded into very 

 thick bush, I think I have had sufficient experience 

 to express an opinion on the subject. , I know of 

 several instances where buffaloes have charged 

 suddenly, and apparently in unprovoked ferocity, 

 upon people who never even saw them until they 

 were dashed, in many cases mortally wounded, to the 

 ground ; but I believe that, in at any rate the 

 majority of cases, if the whole truth could be made 

 known, these buffaloes would be found to have been 

 previously wounded by some other hunter, and 

 finding themselves suddenly confronted by another 

 sportsman in the thicket or patch of long grass to 

 which they had retired to brood over their injuries, 

 at once rushed upon the intruder, perhaps more from 

 the instinct of self-defence than anything else. 



Mr. Henry Barber, a great friend of mine, was 

 very nearly killed in 1877 in this way, by a buffalo 

 he never saw until it rushed upon him, and threw him 

 into the air, inflicting a fearful wound, from which 

 it is a marvel that he ever recovered. 



