204 After Big Game in Central Africa 



animals. Consequently, we turn back, and, following 

 an old elephant track, walk rapidly and noiselessly 

 for ten minutes. Halt ! The Barotse returns from 

 the edge of the thicket, where he has been to look out, 

 and leads us there with many precautions. I then 

 perceive, at a distance of at least two hundred yards, 

 seven or eight giraffes quietly browsing in various 

 positions, some walking slowly about, others standing 

 in the shade of the trees. . . . There is no means of 

 drawing near in a straight line. The animal which 

 seems larger to me than the others, perhaps because 

 it is the nearest and most clearly seen, presents its 

 cruppers to me. It is busily eating from a tree four 

 or five yards high, above which its head towers, and 

 from the top of which it seems to be choosing the 

 young shoots. 



I take my 303, not relying very much on the 

 precision of the Express at this distance, and load it 

 with two decapitated solid bullets. The point only 

 of the bullet is filed off. Bullets treated in this 

 way give animals a more violent shock than hollow 

 ones, and at the same time without going through 

 them. 1 



Carefully I bring my weapon to my shoulder. The 

 sharp report of the 303 makes the giraffes start and 

 rapidly assemble, their long necks motionless, and 

 stretched in the wind like ducks which are about to 

 take to the wing. Not knowing exactly whence the 



1 When you have nothing better you can thus make good 

 projectiles for large animals out of solid bullets. The nickel point 

 must be filed away until the lead is well in view. 



