244 SOUTH AFRICA. 



The extraordinary vitality of all kinds of African 

 game animals counts, however, for much as regards 

 the usual discrepancy between the amount of 

 ammunition expended and its practical effects. 



Details on such subjects are, however, rather too 

 ghastly to be put into type, and would moreover 

 approach the incredible too nearly to venture on 

 in print with any hope of escaping imputations of 

 an undesirable nature. 



For my own part, on this occasion I used a heavy 

 smooth-bore double gun, and did not fire a shot 

 at more than about forty yards, and never pulled 

 off till the sights focussed on a fatal spot, as a 

 wounded buffalo is the most dangerous animal in 

 the world, bar none in my opinion. 



The reader must not, however, conclude that the 

 Boers are nearly such vile shots as the figures I 

 have quoted would indicate, bearing in mind the 

 fact that all African game animals, with the excep- 

 tion of the pachyderms and buffalo, are very much 

 wilder, swifter, and more on the alert than those 

 in any other parts of the world I have seen or read 

 of, and that a steady shot at a motionless animal 

 is of very rare occurrence. 



The extraordinary tenacity of life in all African 



