244 THE LAND OF THE LION 
lions are on foot, one absolutely necessary rule for every 
man to follow is to take his own gun, and never give it up to 
anyone for an instant till he knows his lion is stone dead. 
Some men have theories that the muscles on a lion’s 
chest and shoulders are so unusually tough that ordinary 
good soft nose ammunition driven from modern rifles fails 
to penetrate properly. That this isa mistake I can confidently 
assert. I have always taken care to search closely the traces of 
bullets fired by myself and by others in the dead game. Now 
the rifle I used to kill hundreds of animals in Africa is a .350 
Rigby Mauser, a gun with many solid advantages and of 
course some disadvantages. The advantages are an unusually 
heavy bullet and a good charge of powder. For a repeating 
rifle the bullet is a good deal longer than those fired from 
repeating rifles generally, much longer than the bullets 
of a new Winchester pattern. It has not the velocity 
claimed for several of those new rifles that are thrust on 
the market by their makers almost monthly. These I dare 
say do shoot up to the velocity claimed for them, but be it 
remembered, velocity can only be won by two methods: 
shortening the bullet, or increasing the charge of powder. 
To increase the charge means to increase the weight of the 
gun. To shorten the bullet means inevitably to lessen 
its penetration, and so its killing powers. 
Now for the disadvantages of the weapon. The heavy 
bullet means a comparatively high trajectory. You aim, 
for instance, for argument’s sake let us suppose, with abso- 
lute accuracy at a kongoni’s shoulder at three hundred 
yards’ distance. But the antelope is four hundred, not three 
hundred yards away; well, the heavy bullet will pass 
beneath its brisket. 
Then another thing, the bullet shoves too much lead 
at the point and I am sorry to say I have not yet been able 
to convince the Rigby firm of this most evident and palpable 
fault. Compare the German bullet for the 8 mm. Mannlicher 
