Trials with the Small-Bore 29 



red caps. The local administration ended by for- 

 bidding this butchery; but there were still pseudo 

 sportsmen who killed in a morning seven or eight 

 buffaloes without troubling themselves even to take 

 away the bodies which they left to the vultures. At 

 the present time this plain is transformed into a 

 reserved hunting-ground, and in ten years elephants 

 will return to it as formerly. 1 



To find game, it was necessary to get away from 

 Chiromo towards the west, in the direction of the 

 Anglo-Portuguese boundary, where there were a few 

 buffaloes and antelopes. In that direction I went, 

 therefore, to try my 303, sleeping at Nant'ana, a 

 village situated nearly seven miles away. On the 

 following morning a herd of hartebeests enabled me 

 to make at its expense a few very conclusive experi- 

 ments. The small-bore rifle appeared to me to be 

 extraordinarily powerful ; its precision was perfect ; 

 recoil next to nothing. Almost at each shot I killed 

 my animal. Now, the Lichtenstein bubalis, the height 

 of which is that of a small horse, is very swift ; it is 

 one of the species of antelopes difficult to kill, so much 

 so that it has been baptized by the Boers harte-beest, 

 that is, "hard animal." Experience taught me later 

 the inconveniences or advantages of certain projectiles 

 of the 303 ; but I was then delighted with my new 

 weapon. It was a complete success. The absence of 

 smoke, which was a never-ending source of aston- 

 ishment to the natives, had a great advantage : owing 

 to the reverberation of the shot, the animal never 



1 See Mes Grandes Chasses, p. 318. 



