THE AFRICAN BUFFALO 233 



even flinched. Hastily jamming in another cartridge in order 

 to have one in reserve in case he should charge, I again fired 

 at his shoulder, and he dropped as if struck by lightning ; 

 he fell so quickly that I did not see him fall. He was, 

 however, not dead, as I could see his side heaving above 

 the top of the grass as he lay. By this time the gun- 

 bearers had come up, followed shortly afterwards by the 

 rest of the men, who had come on when they had heard 

 the first two shots, and who, on seeing that the beast was 

 down, ran up like a pack of wolves to ' chinja' it i.e. to cut 

 its throat. Knowing, however, that it was not dead, I ran 

 forward and shouted to them not to go near ; but they were 

 too excited to pay heed to my warning, and were standing all 

 round it, when, after a desperate effort to regain its legs, it 

 jumped up, the men flying in all directions. Catching sight of 

 my second gun-bearer, who had also gone up to it, and who at 

 the time was carrying my 4-bore rifle, it went straight for him. 

 The man bolted, and, finding that the buffalo was close upon 

 him, dropped the rifle the stock of which was snapped short 

 off" at the grip by the buffalo treading on it and ran for dear 

 life, the beast being within a few inches of him, and giving 

 vent to a furious grunt at each step. For some little time I 

 was unable to shoot, as the rest of the men were scattered and 

 dodging about between myself and the buffalo, so I shouted to 

 the gun-bearer to run round towards me, which he did, and I 

 was able to fire, but the 8-bore bullet had apparently no effect 

 on the infuriated beast. At the same moment the man 

 doubled and ran straight away from me, making for a small 

 tree about 100 yards off, twisting and turning as he ran, but 

 the buffalo still stuck close to him and doubled as quickly as 

 the man did. All this time I was tearing along in pursuit, 

 hoping to get a shot, but dared not fire for fear of hitting the 

 man, who was dodging about from side to side, and I was 

 some 60 yards behind when they reached the tree. This the 

 man endeavoured to catch hold of so as to swing himself round, 

 but he was going so fast that the impetus caused his hand 



