HARDENING BULLETS. 169 



bucks that I killed on this same day. It heard us 

 coming, but did not know exactly where we were, 

 and jumped into the path about ten yards in front 

 of me. I gave it a raking shot, to which it fell, but got 

 up again, and was going away on three legs, when I 

 dropped it with a bullet in the neck. I was much sur- 

 prised that it rose after being struck with the first bullet, 

 which ought to have gone right through it, and to have 

 come out in the buck's chest. I looked for the two 

 bullet-holes, and saw but one. Upon opening it, the 

 mystery was solved, the bullet had broken against a 

 bone, and was in a dozen pieces. For this fracturing 

 I accounted by my attempt to harden the bullets for 

 elephant-shooting by adding tin to the lead, and the tin, 

 being the lighter metal, had floated to the surface of 

 the lead, and some of my first bullets had been cast 

 of nearly pure tin, instead of the right composition, and 

 therefore were as brittle as glass. The right hardness 

 is when the teeth can only just leave the least mark on 

 the bullet : this gives about one-eighth tin as the right 

 mixture. 



My two Kaffirs returning with me one day to the 

 Umganie Drift, we found the tide up, and the water con- 

 sequently too deep to get across : it was about five feet in 

 the deepest part. This would not have prevented us from 

 wading, as there was not much current running, and no 

 sea on ; but as great numbers of hungry sharks were on 

 one side, and alligators on the other, we did not like 

 to venture, the breadth being nearly two hundred yards. 

 The alligator is a very unpleasant customer if you are in 



