WITH FLASH-LIGHT AND RIFLE 



protection, yet this was my first and probably only 

 chance to fire a well -aimed shot at the long -sought 

 buffaloes. I singled out a bull feeding a few paces from 

 the bulk of the herd. I fired; the bull threw up his 

 mighty head and beat the air with his tail; a second 

 shot and the animal sank on his knees; a third bullet 

 and the bull fell dead to the ground. The herd dis- 

 appeared in the reed thickets of the swamp. 



At last my patience had been rewarded by a fine 

 stroke of "hunter's luck." 



The skinning of the animal, the transportation of the 

 skin and skull to the main camp, and their preparation 

 occupied us for some days. Then we left Heck Island 

 with our trophy. 



From my experience it may be seen that hunting 

 the buffalo in the wilderness of East Africa is no easy 

 matter. It was dift'erent before 1890, the year in which 

 the rinderpest almost completely destroyed the buf- 

 falo herds in British and German East Africa. Hun- 

 dreds of bleached buffalo skulls are even now met by 

 the hunter in those regions, ghastly mementoes of that 

 ravaging disease. 



The time has passed forever when hunters — like Count 

 Telekis,in 1887, at the Ngnaso-Niyuki — ^shot twenty-five 

 buffaloes within three months; when, as Richard Boehm 

 tells us, herds of hundreds of buffaloes roamed over the 

 mountainous districts of the Kawende, on the plains and 

 in the bush, attracting the hunter by their bellowing. 



174 



