THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
the cows made off by themselves, and after a long hunt we managed to 
secure two out of the three of them. They are tough beasts to finish off, and 
I shall never forget how futile were the shots fired at short range into the 
region of the heart from an old *450 black powder express, as one of them 
lay sore wounded and unable to rise. If lead bullets are used at all they 
should be steel -nosed. Another wounded bull started to charge one of the 
elephants, but changed his mind at the last moment and passed within 
five yards. 
The natives of these parts regard the bison as nearly allied to the cow 
and therefore sacred. Although not averse to our shooting them, they 
declined to touch a carcass, and after we had cut off the heads and done 
the skinning ourselves could hardly be induced to pull up the trophies 
at the end of a rope on to the back of the pad elephant. 
Owing to the continuous rain which now occurred we were unable to 
get the head skins properly dried, and although we kept them hung over 
fires inside a shanty built of grass and bamboo, they ultimately rotted 
and had to be abandoned. I got at the same time a dose of fever which 
remained in my system for over eighteen months. The difficulty of pre- 
serving skins is one of the drawbacks to shooting in India in the rainy 
season, and the only safe way to secure them at this period is by pickling 
in a barrel, a somewhat cumbersome process. 
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