BUFFALO SHOOTING 



cover what I had taken for its feet and its trunk, and I 

 really think I should have loosed off at it had I not heard 

 the " buff" moan. The curious part is, I was not thinking 

 of elephants at the time. 



On another occasion on the sea-coast we saw some 

 " buffs " standing in a lagoon, at the end of a large grass 

 glade. They were about half a mile off, and the only 

 possible chance of getting within shot was by crawling 

 along the edge of the lagoon in grass like short hay. The 

 jungle came down to within about 50 yards of the lagoon, 

 but as the wind was blowing from the jungle towards the 

 lagoon, the only hope of not giving the " buffs " our wind 

 was by keeping as close to the water as possible. It being 

 my shot, my friend stayed behind to watch the proceedings, 

 and I started on my stalk, the tracker in front, I in the 

 middle, and my gun cooly close up behind, all on our 

 faces. It was very slow, hot work, and we had to pull up 

 constantly to rest. As we were crawling along, every now 

 and then the tracker cautiously raising his head to see that 

 the " buffs " were not alarmed, my cooly touched my heel, 

 and on peering round I was astonished to see a huge sow 

 with a very large sounder of three-quarters grown pigs 

 standing within a few yards of me. They formed a semi- 

 circle, with the old sow in the centre. She had her little 

 eyes fixed on us, and kept stamping her feet. I went 

 " shoo," on which she gave a snort, and rushed forward 

 a little ; each time I " shoo'd " she snorted, and seemed on 

 the point of charging, and the tracker was getting very 

 nervous, and pushed my rifle back to me. At last I 

 thought of getting out my handkerchief, and spreading 

 it out, and moving it about. This scared her, and off she 

 went with her following, but after we had crawled another 

 50 yards or so back she came, and the whole performance 



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