48 JO URNAL, BOMB A T NA TUBAL HISTOR Y SOCIETY, Vol. X 



better, both because it gives a miicli more knock-down blow and be- 

 cause the roar of the report is louder, which I believe the buffalo does 

 not like. I latterly always used a 500 express by Henry, lead bullet 

 with steel plug and 4^ drams of powder, when I was going to fire at a 

 buffalo at my ease, at close quarters, and if 1 hit the right place be- 

 hind the shoulder, the animal never wanted another shot ; the express 

 even with an ordinary bullet with a copper tube in it is quite fatal for 

 the head shot. On the other hand, it must be admitted that a 12 or 

 8-bore is better for a charging shot in thick jungle, where you cannot 

 take any particular aim. The bullet should be spherical ; one part of 

 tin and twelve parts of lead. Such a bullet, whether propelled by 9 

 drams from an 8-bore or 4| drams from a 12-bore, will go through the 

 body of a buffalo and lodge under the skin on the opposite side, where 

 it will be found hardly altered in shape. I only remember once a 

 bullet going through the skin on the opposite side. 



T have with the express dropped a charging bull with a shot through 

 the head that did not touch the brain. It was too low, and passed 

 beneath it hitting the vertebrse of the neck. No doubt, if you fire 

 anyhow at a buffalo, he will take a lot of shots, but if you get quite 

 close and hit him properly, he succumbs just as easily as any animal. 

 The latter method is the safest ; though at first one rather funks going 

 close up, you soon lose that feeling as you get confidence in yourself. 

 Some places, where the trees have been cut down for cultivation 

 and abandoned, are extremely thick with the shoots that spring from 

 the roots of the trees. It is no exaggeration to say you cannot see 

 a yard. These are nasty spots to follow a buffalo into. Occasionally 

 I have heard the buffalo I could not see striking the ground with his 

 fore feet in anger in one of these places. The sound has a sonorous 

 metallic ring about it. On pushing into a buffalo that was doing this, 

 he bolted and I never got him, as it happened that heavy rains had 

 swollen the Jonk river to a raging torrent, two hundred yards wide, 

 running like a mill race. The buffalo swam across and I could not follow 

 him. 1 did not see him swim, as he had got over before I got there. 

 But the tracks led down the river bank siniight into the water which 

 was several feet deep where the buffalo had plunged in. Ho had 

 previously swum a nullah full of water. 



Numbers of buffalo are killed by cattle disease. I was told 

 at a village that a solitary bull drank at the village tank every 



