GUN CLEANING 293 



I make it a rule, although 1 am afraid it is one 

 which will not commend itself to many, of in- 

 variably cleaning my firearms myself at the end 

 of the day's shooting. I do not believe the 

 African native hunter or gun-bearer, be his abili- 

 ties and excellences as a tracker and skinner 

 what they may, can ever be safely entrusted with 

 this all-important task. The unpleasant ex- 

 perience of a friend of mine which befell him 

 through his failure to observe this practice is a 

 valuable object lesson. He had got up to 

 buffaloes in swampy ground — fifteen or twenty of 

 them — and had severely wounded a large bull. 

 He pressed aside the top lever of his double '400 

 to reload the discharged chamber when the 

 barrels dropped off the stock, muzzle downward, 

 of course, into a foot of mud. The missing fore- 

 end was discovered on his empty-handed return 

 to camp. His gun-bearer, who had been en- 

 trusted over night with the cleaning of the rifle, 

 had forgotten to replace it at the end of that 

 operation, with consequences which might have 

 been most serious. \\Tien it is remembered that 

 the morning start for most successful hunting 

 days takes place by starhght, it will easily be 

 understood how it was that the absence of the 

 fore-end remained undetected. 



In cleaning cordite rifles it is a good plan to 

 use plenty of boiling water to wash out the 

 barrels, dissolving about a quarter of an ounce of 

 bicarbonate of soda to the quart of water. In 

 applying this mixture, it is not always enough to 

 potLT it through, and allow it to run out at the 



20 



