ABOUT SPORTING AND MILITARY WEAPONS. 8l 



single 8-bore rifle, by Daw, of Threadneedle 

 Street, London, and a good strong smooth-bore 

 double M.L. of i6-bore, by Osborne and Sons, 

 Birmingham, the latter being fitted with a back 

 sight and an ivory front sight. Shortly before 

 reaching the buffalo ground, the trigger of the 

 8-bore was accidentally broken, and I had to rely 

 on the little smooth-bore, with which, however, 

 in a few days forty-three of these animals were 

 brought to bag, very few indeed escaping which 

 were hit, and several were knocked over by raking 

 shots from behind. Moreover, three full-grown 

 cow elephants fell, during the same trip, to bullets 

 from the same gun, which improved the profit of 

 the hunt by the value of about fifty pounds of 

 ivory. On another occasion, when on an elephant 

 hunt, I found a plain but specially built smooth 

 1 2 -bore double, with 26-inch barrels, weighing 

 about Qlb., as effective as any weapon I ever 

 handled when charged with 4^ drams of fine 

 grain C.H. powder. Indeed, I was astonished at 

 the penetrating powers of this gun, which on one 

 occasion drove its hard spherical ball through the 

 left side of one of the bones of the dorsal column 

 of a huge bull elephant, cut the large artery 



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