100 LARGE GAME. chap. ii. 



the distance and the thickness of the bushes I could not 

 make them out very distinctly, so I dropped down, and 

 getting outside the fringe of bushes, would soon have got 

 close to them, had not a seventh, which I had not seen, 

 and which was standing with its head towards me, having 

 probably finished drinking, and being on its way to feed, 

 suddenly given the alarm ; and though I fired as they 

 trotted off at fifty yards, I believe I missed with both 

 barrels, as I did not hear the clap of the ball following 

 either. 



Perhaps people who have never hunted large game 

 may think that it would be almost impossible for any one 

 who could shoot at all to miss such a mark as half a dozen 

 rhinoceroses at fifty yards, but I assure them I have 

 seen men come out from England, first-class grouse and 

 partridge shots, and who were able to make wonderful 

 practice with a rifle at a target with measured distances, 

 but who could not for months kill more than an occa- 

 sional head of the quantities of game by which they were 

 surrounded ; and I have seen rhinoceros missed clean, 

 standing not twenty yards off, by men who could kill a 

 couple of snipe right and left three times out of five. 

 Judging the distance correctly is the chief stumbling- 

 block in an atmosphere so different to that of Europe, and 

 which, from its clearness, causes an animal at one hundred 

 and fifty yards not to appear much over seventy, and the 

 probable explanation of my missing these is that, deceived 

 by the peculiar light of early dawn, I judged them to be 

 fifty yards off, while they were perhaps eighty in reality. 



There was, however, nothing for it but to return to 

 my ambush, where I patiently waited till about seven 



