244 THE LAND OF THE LION 



lions are on foot, one absolutely necessary rule for every 

 man to follow is to take his own gun, and never give it up to 

 anyone for an instant till he knows his lion is stone dead. 



Some men have theories that the muscles on a lion's 

 chest and shoulders are so unusually tough that ordinary 

 good soft nose ammunition driven from modern rifles fails 

 to penetrate properly. That this is a mistake I can confidently 

 assert. I have always taken care to search closely the traces of 

 bullets fired by myself and by others in the dead game. Now 

 the rifle I used to kill hundreds of animals in Africa is a .350 

 Rigby Mauser, a gun with many solid advantages and of 

 course some disadvantages. The advantages are an unusually 

 heavy bullet and a good charge of powder. For a repeating 

 rifle the bullet is a good deal longer than those fired from 

 repeating rifles generally, much longer than the bullets 

 of a new Winchester pattern. It has not the velocity 

 claimed for several of those new rifles that are thrust on 

 the market by their makers almost monthly. These I dare 

 say do shoot up to the velocity claimed for them, but be it 

 remembered, velocity can only be won by two methods: 

 shortening the bullet, or increasing the charge of powder 

 To increase the charge means to increase the weight of the 

 gun. To shorten the bullet means inevitably to lessen 

 its penetration, and so its killing powers. 



Now for the disadvantages of the weapon. The heavy 

 bullet means a comparatively high trajectory. You aim, 

 for instance, for argument's sake let us suppose, with abso- 

 lute accuracy at a kongoni's shoulder at three hundred 

 yards' distance. But the antelope is four hundred, not three 

 hundred yards away; well, the heavy bullet will pass 

 beneath its brisket. 



Then another thing, the bullet shoves too much lead 

 at the point and I am sorry to say I have not yet been able 

 to convince the Rigby firm of this most evident and palpable 

 fault. Compare the German bullet for the 8 mm. Mannlicher 



