THE WILD BUFFALO 



be a tame one ! My bullet had (luckily for me) 

 drilled a hole right through him too high for the 

 vitals, and too low to injure the spine, so the injury 

 being but a temporary one, the compensation which 

 I had to pay was far more moderate than it would 

 have been had I killed the bull. 



One evening, when out with a i2-bore rifle, 

 while on the same estate, I visited a narrow open 

 in dense reed and grass jungle, in the hope of 

 finding wild pigs feeding there (I had, when out 

 with a shot-gun, previously seen a sounder of pig 

 in that spot). In place of pigs, I found a herd 

 of buffalo. I could not be sure whether they 

 were wild or tame animals, so to settle the point 

 I showed myself, and they stampeded, one big 

 beast pulling up at the edge of the jungle and 

 turning round to look. My shot at it was, how- 

 ever, ineffectual, and it disappeared in the dense, 

 high reeds. 



Another evening I visited the same spot, this 

 time taking my 8-bore rifle. It was devoid of 

 game, but further on in the jungle was a pond, 

 and on proceeding to look at this, I found a single 

 buffalo grazing at its edge. I made a careful stalk 

 in, and gave the bull both barrels. He rushed 

 into a dense patch of high reed and grass, and 

 I could hear him snorting and blowing inside 

 evidently very -sick but as it was getting dusk, 

 I was obliged to leave him to his own devices. 

 Next morning I went to look for him, and found 

 him in the same place. He jumped up close to 

 me and went off, but in such jungle a man on 



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