326 THE LAND OF THE LION 
If he should rush toward you he is almost sure to pass 
you by at very close range. And if it is necessary to fire 
again, you can do so without rising or moving, and with 
deadly effect. Whereas, a succession of bullets fired at 
the head and shoulders of a charging beast generally do 
little damage. If he is coming right on, let him come. 
And at a few yards the heavy bullet will stop, turn or kill 
him. This applies to elephant and rhino. Lion and 
buffalo when once they have made up their mind to charge 
keep coming on till killed. As they come toward you, 
animals often look as though they were coming right on 
when really they are not doing so. I repeat what I said 
before: When possible, receive dangerous game sitting 
down. Your doing so gives your men confidence and 
there will then be no wild rifle firing. 
I cannot insist too constantly on the need of drilling 
the gunbearers; getting to know them; making them 
understand your wishes, your own peculiar way of hand- 
ling your rifle and selecting your cartridges. I have 
looked most painstakingly into the details of those unfort- 
unate incidents, when wounds or death have been inflicted 
by the wild beast. I can assert that in the great majority 
of cases lack of care of rifles, undisciplined gunbearers, 
or some such cause, has been uppermost in bringing about 
the calamity. 
Lord was charged, not far from Nairobi, by a 
lion he had ridden. Lady was on horseback not 
a quarter of a mile away, and was a horror-stricken spec- 
tator of what came near being a tragedy. Lord 
was a poor shot. The lion came slowly at first, as they 
generally do, out of the grass. Lord , with a gun- 
bearer on either side of him, sat down to kill him. He 
fired at about sixty yards’ range and only scratched him. 
Then the excited Somali on either side fired and, of course, 
missed. This maddened the lion more and he rushed 
