268 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



clean away. Although disappointed ' at the result after all my 

 trouble and excitement, it was perhaps as well for me as like- 

 wise for the rhinoceros that the rifle did not go off, as the 

 heavy recoil might have had very unpleasant results to myself. 



1 This was one of many disappointments from the same cause, as at the 

 time I was using a consignment of cartridges lately received from England, out 

 of which 45 per cent, missed fire ; and after I had had rather a disagreeable 

 encounter with an old bull-buffalo, and had twice failed to stop a charging 

 rhinoceros, my nerve was so shaken that I gave up using the 8-bore until I 

 had sent to the coast for and received another lot (Messrs. Kiev's) which I 

 had left behind, and \vhich never once failed me, although they had been in 

 the country, and in a moist atmosphere, over two years. 



