276 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



loading days, it missed fire. I quickly put on a 

 fresh cap, but as that missed fire too, I concluded 

 that the nipple had got stopped up in some way, 

 and so took up the gun with which I had originally 

 wounded the rhinoceros, and commenced to reload 

 it in frantic haste. 



Just as I got the bullet rammed down, however, 

 and before I could put the cap on the nipple, the 

 rhinoceros, which all this time had been making a 

 series of short runs, first in one direction and then 

 in another, but had always been quite close to us, 

 started off in a straight line, putting on more pace 

 at every step; and although we ran as hard as we 

 could, we never overtook it, and I did not fire at 

 it again. My bullet no doubt passed above the 

 animal's brain-pan, and must have lodged in the 

 muscles of its neck, only stunning it temporarily ; 

 but it really seemed to be absolutely dead for so 

 long a time after falling to the ground, that its 

 recovery and eventual escape, after receiving a four- 

 ounce bullet through the upper part of the head, 

 and having a gash cut in its side at least two feet 

 long, not to mention a deep stab in the region of 

 the heart, is, I think, one of the most remarkable 

 incidents I have ever witnessed during a long 

 experience of African hunting. 



Another equally curious, but far more exasperat- 

 ing experience occurred to me early in May 1877, 

 when I was hunting with two friends, Dorehill and 

 Kingsley, on one of the tributaries of the river Daka, 

 about sixty miles to the south of the Victoria Falls 

 of the Zambesi. At the time of which I am writing 

 buffaloes literally swarmed all over this part of the 

 country, and it was in order to shoot a few of 

 these animals and lay in a supply of good fat 

 meat, that we had left our waggons standing at 

 a place known as the Baobab vley, and made an 

 excursion to the east, necessarily on foot because 



