Big Game Shooting 



the swamp referred to, where the grass was 

 moderately short, between it and a patch of very- 

 dense scrub jungle, which the buffalo frequented 

 to lie and sleep in, to pass the heat of the day. 



Our plan was to creep round by a detour 

 cautiously to these thrones, and then beaters, who 

 were timed to start an hour after us, were to 

 come out and fire a few shots into the air, and 

 so to stampede the herd towards the swamp on 

 to us lying in wait for them. 



Of course, if a buffalo had hit a perch in his 

 flight into their sanctuary it would most certainly 

 have collapsed, and the unfortunate sportsman 

 would have been in a bad quandary. As it hap- 

 pened, the whole idea could not possibly have 

 proved a greater success if one had spent a year 

 of thought over it — from the point of view of 

 driving the buffalo out ; but of course the shoot- 

 ing might, and certainly ought to, have been 

 straighten They came out like the best-driven 

 partridges, and I can never hope for better. 



On the appointed morning, Wilson and I 

 started off to our perches, hoping that time 

 enough had elapsed to have driven away the 

 smell of the men who had been cutting the wood 

 and moving about, and allowed the buffalo to 

 come back to their lying-up places for the day. 



I and my Masai orderly, Wilson and his 

 Somali gun-bearer, on nearing the perches, put 

 up about five of the animals, which charged off 



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