CHAP. i. BUFFALO. 13 



to hesitate, for at any second the rhinoceros-birds might 

 discover my presence and give the alarm, so, aiming 

 through the intervening stalks, I covered the centre of 

 the forehead and pulled the trigger, bounding at the same 

 instant into the reeds, so as to be out of danger of a 

 charge. The birds rose screaming, and by the heavy 

 struggling and crashing that I could hear I knew that 

 the bull was endeavouring to rise. The thumping and 

 noise lasted a minute or more, and then I heard the low 

 death-bellow, without which no buffalo draws its last 

 breath ; so, rising, I approached the spot, though still cau- 

 tiously, and saw that my huge antagonist was indeed dead. 

 It was the largest bull that I ever saw, and the mark 

 of my morning's bullet proved it to be the same that we 

 had been following all day. His horns met in the centre, 

 in a way that I never saw equalled either before or since ; 

 and it was a matter of far greater surprise that the last 

 ball should have penetrated to the brain than that the 

 former should have failed to do so. The amount of weight 

 that he carried on his forehead was wonderful, for the mass 

 of horn that protected it, and which was nowhere less than 

 an inch thick, unless in the centre, extended from the 

 back of the head to within a few inches of the nose, 

 completely overhanging the eyes, and measured over two 

 feet in breadth. His neck, as he lay dead, came above my 

 knee, and my efforts to move his head to enable me the 

 better to examine the bullet-marks were totally unavailing. 

 He had no tail, and hardly a hair on his body, but was, as 

 I had noticed in the morning, extremely fat. He formed 

 a grand picture as he lay there in the silence, with the 

 rising moon throwing a flood of light over his immense 



