114 THE OUT-STATION; OR, 



ward, so that it is impossible to get at the forehead, 

 they bear down upon him, and it requires a person to 

 have all his wits about him to avoid coming in con- 

 tact with their horns; which appendages I have fre- 

 quently seen ten and twelve feet from tip to tip, and 

 they are the only articles in the buffalo's possession 

 worth shooting him for, the meat being coarse and 

 unfit for table. 



If you happen to have a friend you can depend 

 upon in an engagement with a buffalo, your best plan 

 is to stand the charge as courageously as you can, and 

 thus give your comrade, who is at some little distance 

 on your flank, a chance of a side shot just behind the 

 animal's shoulder, which will, if fired by an expe- 

 rienced hand, find its way directly through the heart, 

 and bring the adversary dead to the ground. 



In excursions after elephants I have more than 

 once had one of my followers ripped completely open 

 by an unseen buffalo in the jungle, and when they are 

 found singly they are more like mad brutes than any 

 thing else, having most probably been driven from 

 their herds for some reason, and henceforward doomed 

 to the life of an outcast and an exile. 



In self-defence I have shot many of the animals, 

 but it became latterly a favourite trick of the natives 

 when any one shot a buffalo to charge the person so 

 shooting him with destroying his (the nigger's) pri- 

 vate property; and in some parts of the island it is not 

 a very easy matter to know a tame from a wild buffalo. 



