268 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
_ clean away. Although disappointed ! at the result after all my 
trouble and excitement, it was perhaps as well for me—as like- 
wise for the rhinoceros—that the rifle did not go off, as the 
heavy recoil might have had very unpleasant results to myself. 
* This was one of many disappointments from the same cause, as at the 
time I was using a consignment of cartridges lately received from England, out 
of which 45 per cent. missed fire ;. and a'ter 1 had had rather a disagreeable 
encounter with an old bull-buffalo, and had twice failed to stop a charging 
rhinoceros, my nerve was so shaken that I gave up using the 8-bore until I 
had sent to the coast for and received another lot (Messrs. Eley’s) which I 
had left behind, and which never once failed me, although they had been in 
the country, and in a moist atmosphere, over two years. 
ae ee ‘i 
