SYCE'S ADVENTURE 289 



how fiercely he comes on; he will usually swerve, if it be for 

 only a few feet, and pass on one side. So, to, generally does 

 the elephant who seems to dread a repetition of bullet shock, 

 and so swerves to the impact of the modern heavy charge. 

 Were this not so many more men would be killed by elephant 

 and rhino and the white man would dread the rhino charge 

 more than the native, for he is not so nimble and the native 

 has a holy horror of the ill-tempered brute. But a wounded 

 buffalo who waits for his enemy, waits because he knows 

 he is in a corner and cannot retreat, or if it is a cow, because 

 she thinks her calf is in danger; nothing but death, and 

 sudden death too, will stop that incarnation of cunning rage. 

 A man was killed not long ago in East Africa by a 

 wounded buffalo in this way. He had wounded it in the 

 morning, often when the herds come out of the densest wood- 

 land to feed in the green glades that run up into the forest. 

 The wounded beast had rushed off into cover and the hunter, 

 following the spoor, had tracked it the best part of the day, 

 and finally lost the trail. At length he gave it up and went 

 on with his hunting, only turning back to camp in the even- 

 ing. Tired of carrying his heavy rifle he gave it to one of the 

 gunboys and was sauntering some few yards ahead of them, 

 when he passed near the place where he had lost the trail in 

 the morning. Close to that trail the buffalo had been stand- 

 ing immovable for hours and as he passed, for the moment 

 unarmed, it was upon him with a rush and in a few moments 

 all was over. Knowing well the need of caution, I therefore 

 went carefully forward with my men. My game had been 

 shot through and through. There was blood on each side 

 of the spoor and from the height of the blood marks on the 

 stained grass and scrub, it was evident that the bullet had 

 taken him half way up. 



Every one tells you on no account to follow up, in scrub, 

 a wounded buffalo, and every one who has, after months of 

 hoping and working, sent his bullet home into a fine bull, 



