XVI TWO TSESSEBES SHOT 285 



size for some days, and wanted meat badly for my 

 native servants and dogs, and much regretted that 

 my rifle was not a double-barrelled one, so that I 

 might have secured them both. 



One of the tsessebes was standing with its rump 

 more squarely towards me than the other, so aiming 

 just at the root of its tail, I hred, and saw at once 

 that I had struck the unfortunate animal exactly 

 right, as its hind-quarters immediately gave way, 

 though it struggled towards the grass with the help 

 of its forelegs. At the report of my rifle the 

 unwounded antelope came galloping round the open 

 ground surrounding the pool to within a short 

 distance of where I was sitting, then, halting for an 

 instant, turned and galloped back again. Just as it 

 reached its stricken comrade, I had reloaded and 

 was ready to fire again. Although this tsessebe 

 was galloping pretty fast, it offered an easy shot, 

 for it was almost broadside to me when I fired, and 

 within sixty yards' range. As I pulled the trigger, 

 down it went as if struck by lightning, and I felt 

 very pleased at having secured a much needed 

 supply of meat, close to the pool of water by which 

 I had made up my mind we would camp that night, 

 in order that none of it should be wasted. 



On walking round to where the tsessebe last 

 shot had fallen — the other one had struggled into 

 the long grass — I found it lying flat on its side, and 

 apparently just expiring. My bullet — a 360-grain 

 hollow-pointed projectile, fired from a 450 - bore 

 Metford rifle — had struck it some six inches behind 

 the right shoulder, and rather below the central line 

 of the body. I turned the animal over, and seeing 

 a bulge in the skin in the middle of its left shoulder, 

 felt it with my fingers, and squeezed up the flattened 

 and expanded cone of lead, which had mushroomed 

 out to the width of a halfpenny, under the skin. As 

 far as I could see, the prostrate antelope could not 



