pYCE’S ADVENTURE 291 
bullet to shoot buffalo with was the solid, not the soft nose. 
Of course he was quite wrong, the soft nose bullet being 
much the deadlier on such soft-skinned game. He had his 
orders and he knew them; Kongoni carried a8 second gun- 
bearer my heavy .450 and Dooda the .350. When I took the 
latter, Dooda took over the former, Kongoni handed him 
the rifle charged as I directed it to be and he, as soon as he 
received it, took out quietly the soft nose bullets that were in 
the chamber and substituted solids for them. Thus it 
came about that contrary to my intention, I fired a solid, not 
a soft nose bullet into my fine bull, when I had my snap 
chance at him. 
I thought it strange at the time, when I found by the 
blood spoor that the bullet had gone quite through, and 
that there was blood on both sides of the trail that this 
should have happened — asa soft nose bullet should never 
go through a large animal. But it never occurred to me that 
one of my men would dare to tamper with my guns, as I 
had had both of them for a long time, and they knew well 
that if they did so they would be severely punished. When 
things went wrong, as they did all that long dangerous after- 
noon, and when hour after hour we crept and crawled in vain 
after the wounded bull, Dooda made up his mind to hold his 
tongue. It was only after he had left my employ, he at 
last confessed to Brownie what he had done. 
That is one of the maddening faults of a Somali. His 
conceit is insufferable, he thinks he and he alone knows 
what the occasion demands. His eyes are good, but not so 
good as those of a Wakamba, a N’dorobo or Massai. His 
judgment of course is worthless and, though he will seldom 
desert you, he is apt to become uncontrollably nervous in a 
really tight place, and fire off his gun. In the old days 
when none of the East Africa natives were trained gun- 
bearers, he was often the best thing to be had. ‘To-day he 
is a mistake. 
