GENERAL OUTFIT AND ROUTE OF TRAVEL 



too small and light to stop such a beast at once, even if 

 shot through the heart. 



To be well equipped with guns there should be one 

 small bore, such as the popular Mannlicher just mentioned, 

 a heavier magazine rifle, such as the powerful .405 Win- 

 chester — a splendid " lion killer " — or a nine- or eleven- 

 millimeter Mauser or Mannlicher rifle, and then perhaps a 

 double-barreled .450 cordite Express, such as Colonel 

 Roosevelt has used with great success on his African 

 trip. If the hunter is a strong and powerfully built man, 

 he may use even a double-barreled .577 cordite Express — 

 without doubt the most potent shoulder weapon made — 

 firing not less than one hundred grains of cordite and a 

 bullet weighing seven hundred and fifty grains, giving the 

 gun a tremendous penetration. But the weight of this gun 

 of fourteen to fifteen pounds, and the rather " unpleasant " 

 recoil of the shot, makes it impossible for anyone but a 

 heavily set man to use it. 



Once in 1906, when suddenly charged by a female 

 rhinoceros on the western slopes of Mt. Kenia, I fired with 

 this kind of gun at very close quarters, the muzzle of the 

 gun being perhaps not more than four yards away from 

 the rhino's forehead. The bullet passed right through the 

 brute's head, plowed through the whole neck, smashed the 

 lungs, and was cut out by my taxidermist from the very 

 center of the rhino's heart ! 



A small caliber, high-power gun, although perfectly 

 sufficient to kill any animal instantly, if shot through its 

 head, is not powerful enough to stop a big charging beast, 

 if fired at any other part of its body, whereas the tremen- 

 dous shock of for instance, a bullet from the .577 Express 



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