332 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



up a continuous loud hoarse growling, which can be heard at a 

 considerable distance. 



It has always appeared to me that lions succumb more 

 quickly to wounds in the front part of the body, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the heart and lungs, than do any of the antelopes 

 living in the same country ; but, as with all other animals, shots 

 through the stomach, intestines, or hind-quarters do them little 

 immediate harm, unless indeed the back or leg bones are 

 injured, when they are at once disabled. Although, as I have 

 said earlier in this chapter, lions almost always retreat before 

 the presence of man, they become very savage when wounded, 

 and it is undoubtedly highly dangerous work following them 

 into long grass or thick cover without dogs. My experience in 

 Southern Africa has shown me that wounded lions are far 

 more likely to charge than wounded buffaloes, and although 

 they may be more easily stopped, they are much quicker and 

 more difficult to hit than those animals, 



I have only shot lions with two kinds of rifles, a single 10- 

 bore carrying a spherical bullet and six drachms of powder, and 

 a '450-bore Metford rifle by George Gibbs of Bristol, carrying 

 either a 36o-grain expanding bullet and ninety grains of 

 powder, or a 540-grain solid bullet and seventy-five grains of 

 powder ; and in my opinion the ^o-bore with the heavy 360- 

 grain expanding bullet was the more deadly weapon. These 

 expanding bullets, having but a very small hole at the point and 

 a good solid base, possess great penetrating power, as may be 

 believed when I say that they will reach the brain of a hippopo- 

 tamus, should they enter at the side of the head between the 

 ear and the eye. They will go clean through a lion behind the 

 shoulders, after first making a very large hole through his 

 lungs ; and if the animal be struck in the shoulder, the bones 

 will be smashed and the solid end of the bullet will go right 

 through the cavity of the chest, probably piercing the heart, and 

 lodge in the further shoulder. I think that the effectiveness of 

 a rifle depends more on the bullet it carries than on its bore, 

 and should consider a ^o-bore rifle such as I have described 



