THE AFRICAN BUFFALO 227 



pretty sure to go somewhere near the lungs. Directly the 

 smoke cleared, my gun-bearer told me that he had seen 

 the tree fall, and on going up to it I found the bullet, an 

 8-bore, had caught it exactly in the centre and so shattered 

 it that the heavy table-top had caused it to break off where 

 the bullet entered. Whilst measuring it I heard a deep groan 

 in the direction the buffalo had taken, and on taking up the 

 spoor found my beast quite dead, lying in the grass about 

 150 yards off, shot through the shoulder. On cutting it open 

 I found the bullet had gone through both lungs, and was 

 sticking in the ribs on the other side. A shot at the head, even 

 with an 8-bore, with hardened bullet and twelve drachms of 

 powder, would in most cases have little effect on a buffalo, 

 unless, of course, the beast should be sufficiently near to enable 

 the sportsman to make sure of putting his bullet just under the 

 frontlet of the horns into the brain ; but I think that most men 

 who have shot buffaloes would say that such a range would be 

 far too near to be pleasant. As the chances that a head shot 

 at a buffalo will prove fatal are so very small, this shot should 

 be avoided altogether except in the case of a charge, where it 

 may be the only one offered. 



Although I have killed a good many buffaloes, and under 

 all sorts of conditions, I have only once had recourse to the 

 head shot. This was in the district lying between Kahe and 

 Taveta, where I was shooting in February 1887. The country 

 was here fairly open, with numerous patches of bush dotted 

 about, and a few small isolated rocky hills, appropriately called 

 by one writer ' earth boils.' On climbing up one of these to 

 get a better view of the surrounding country, I spied an old 

 bull buffalo about a mile off, quietly feeding close to a patch 

 of bush, which was about 150 yards long and about 50 yards 

 wide, and, as the wind was favourable, I felt pretty sure of 

 getting him without much difficulty. On arriving at the bush, 

 I found a small low ant-heap just opposite the place where 

 I had last seen the buffalo, and I stepped on to it to try and 

 see exactly where he was on the other side of the bush, but 



Q2 



