chap. i. BUFFALO. 71 



instead of following the buffalo as he would otherwise have 

 done ; but as it is unsafe for the boys to go in even to 

 fetch firewood, it must be killed to-morrow. 



" June 4th. — Dupre and all the hunters went into the 

 Daka after that brute of a rogue. They scattered all over 

 the bush, and at last three of them found it, after a long 

 hunt, lying concealed close by where three paths met. 

 It instantly charged, and they fired in succession, the first 

 two bullets not making the slightest impression. The 

 last man, or rather boy, for he was only fifteen, being a 

 favourite of Dupre's, had a double rifle, and fired right and 

 left, bringing it down the second shot. It is very rarely 

 that a buffalo will keep on charging straight in the face of 

 well-directed bullets, such as these were, but, as the hun- 

 ters said, this one wanted to kill a man before it died. It 

 was found to be one wounded by Shuga on the 5 th of last 

 month. His bullet of six to the pound had gone right 

 through the body, and was cut out of the skin on the 

 opposite side, having penetrated the stomach and liver, 

 in consequence of which the whole of the intestines were 

 rotten and most offensive, and no doubt it would ulti- 

 mately have caused its death, though the length of time, 

 a whole month, shows how tough it was." 



Many other instances have come to my knowledge, 

 sometimes of their making a fight of it for some time after 

 they had got a ball through the heart, sometimes of their 

 recovering from wounds which are usually considered cer- 

 tain death, and it is not an uncommon thing to extract 

 half a dozen old bullets from the body of one when killed, 

 some of them having evidently been there for years. 



