326 THE LAND OF THE LION 



If he should rush toward you he is almost sure to pass 

 you by at very close range. And if it is necessary to fire 

 again, you can do so without rising or moving, and with 

 deadly effect. Whereas, a succession of bullets fired at 

 the head and shoulders of a charging beast generally do 

 little damage. If he is coming right on, let him come. 

 And at a few yards the heavy bullet will stop, turn or kill 

 him. This applies to elephant and rhino. Lion and 

 buffalo when once they have made up their mind to charge 

 keep coming on till killed. As they come toward you, 

 animals often look as though they were coming right on 

 when really they are not doing so. I repeat what I said 

 before: When possible, receive dangerous game sitting 

 down. Your doing so gives your men confidence and 

 there will then be no wild rifle firing. 



I cannot insist too constantly on the need of drilling 

 the gunbearers; getting to know them; making them 

 understand your wishes, your own peculiar way of hand- 

 ling your rifle and selecting your cartridges. I have 

 looked most painstakingly into the details of those unfort- 

 unate incidents, when wounds or death have been inflicted 

 by the wild beast. I can assert that in the great majority 

 of cases lack of care of rifles, undisciplined gunbearers, 

 or some such cause, has been uppermost in bringing about 

 the calamity. 



Lord was charged, not far from Nairobi, by a 



lion he had ridden. Lady was on horseback not 



a quarter of a mile away, and was a horror-stricken spec- 

 tator of what came near being a tragedy. Lord 



was a poor shot. The lion came slowly at first, as they 

 generally do, out of the grass. Lord , with a gun- 

 bearer on either side of him, sat down to kill him. He 

 fired at about sixty yards' range and only scratched him. 

 Then the excited Somali on either side fired and, of course, 

 missed. This maddened the lion more and he rushed 



