140 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



a soft felt hat, and a pair of shoes. Had I been 

 short-sighted or dull-sighted, and gone blundering 

 into thick jungle after wounded buffaloes, in heavy 

 shooting boots and thick clothes, as inexperienced 

 sportsmen sometimes used to do, I might have met 

 with more adventures than I have done. 



Of course, in the pursuit of any kind of big 

 game which becomes dangerous when wounded, 

 accidents will sometimes occur to the most experi- 

 enced hunters. The Hon. Guy Dawnay, it will be 

 remembered, was killed many years ago in East 

 Africa by a buffalo which he had wounded. This 

 gentleman, whom I met in Matabeleland in 1873, 

 had had a great deal of experience in hunting all 

 kinds of African game before meeting with the 

 accident which cost him his life, and was an excep- 

 tionally athletic young Englishman. 



In all my experience I can only remember one 

 wounded buffalo, when being followed through open 

 forest, charging from a distance of perhaps a 

 hundred yards, but lions when chased on horseback 

 will often, even before they have been fired at, turn 

 and charge from even a greater distance. 



When wounded in open country a buffalo will 

 always make for thick cover. Before it reaches 

 this, it will perhaps see you several times following 

 on its tracks. It will then stop, turn, and, with head 

 raised and outstretched nose, stand looking at you 

 for a few seconds, but if able to do so will almost 

 invariably gallop off again. When it has reached 

 the retreat for which it is making, it will presently 

 halt, but unless very badly wounded will not lie 

 down for some time. Personally, I have never 

 known a wounded buffalo to circle round and then 

 stand watching near its own tracks for its approach- 

 ing enemies ; but I can imagine that one of these 

 animals when wounded might go zigzagging about 

 in a thick piece of jungle, and, without any fixed 



