188 BIG GAME SHOOTING — 
will serve the same purpose if struck and blown out im- 
mediately. The smell of the tobacco smoke is in no way likely 
to frighten game, as, if a beast is able to detect it, it is equally 
certain that he will be able to wind the stalker. Personally, I 
use a pipe as a wind-finder more than anything else, and I have 
had a lighted pipe in my mouth at the time of siteae at more 
than half of the game I have killed. 
Before commencing a stalk up to dangerous game, the 
stalker should a/ways put two or three cartridges for his big 
rifles into his pocket in order to have them handy and to render 
him perfectly independent of his gun-bearers. Even the best 
gun-bearers might fail him one day when in a critical position, 
and the want of a cartridge might be the cause of a very 
serious accident. 
As elsewhere, so in Africa, one of the great secrets of 
success in big game shooting is to be up early and on the 
feeding grounds at daylight, when everything is in favour of 
the stalker. In the early morning most game will be found 
feeding, and will be more easily seen when so occupied than 
later on in the day when lying down in the shade of a tree or 
bush, with only one of the herd standing up. This beast, if it 
is the sentinel of a herd, will in all probability be a female, or 
a male with an inferior head, as the old bulls and bucks rarely 
act sentry; or it may be a solitary individual not worth 
stalking. The stalker, being possibly a long way off at the 
time of sighting it, and unable to see whether there is a herd 
lying concealed near it in the grass or not, may miss a good 
chance at a beast with a first-rate head through a pardonable 
dislike to going a long way out of his track on an off-chance. 
But when feeding the stalker has a good chance of examining 
with his binoculars each individual beast in the herd, he can 
compare one with another, and mark those with the best heads. 
Then, again, in the early morning the air is fresh and the 
ground cool, and a long stalk is not nearly so fatiguing then as 
later on ; whilst in the cool hours of the early morning it is 
much easier to judge distances, as the air is clear and there is 
