HUNTING IN AFRICA 125 
to go near. Now, I had just four cartridges left for that 
rifle, and I hated to use them up, so instead of following 
the man’s example, who had at least had far more experi- 
ence than I (and as once or twice already I had finished 
animals that he had refused to go near, instead of using 
another cartridge to make sure), I came behind the water- 
buck, well clear of his horns, and straddling him as I had 
to, drove the knife in. He was on his feet with a bound, 
throwing me, I cannot say how many feet, over his head, 
and with another bound was on top of me. My hunter 
shot him in the neck promptly (a foolish place, by the 
way, to shoot, for no man can be sure of breaking the bone, 
and if you miss it you do little harm). He was too far 
gone, most fortunately, to do me damage with his horns, 
but his trampling hurt me dreadfully, he weighed quite six 
hundred pounds. [I limped to camp and lay there for several 
days before addressing myself as best as I could, to the 
eighty-mile walk to Nairobi. I got there at last, hobbling 
along about eight or ten miles a day, my ankle and knee 
much swollen. The ankle hurt most and mended soonest. 
But that knee cost me many a weary month in bed and on 
sofa afterward. 
After what I have said, I shall not, I hope, be accused 
of exaggerating the danger likely to be met with by the 
well-equipped sportsman in pursuit of game in East Africa. 
But after making due allowance for hunters’ stories, 
specially inexperienced hunters’ stories, a certain amount 
of risk has to be run. Lion, rhino, elephant, and buffalo, 
at times are very dangerous, and life is often lost. Ninety- 
nine times out of a hundred, it is the wounded beast who 
does the damage, and not only so, but it is in following 
up wounded beasts that life or limb is lost. 
Every good man will take a risk sometimes, and will 
be surely right in doing so. But there are risks to his 
own life, and be it remembered to his men’s lives, that 
