134 
WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WA VS 
CHAP. 
the bursting charge. The cap was only adjusted 
previous to loading, as a necessary precaution. 
This half-pound shell was propelled by a charge of 
16 drams of coarse-grained powder. 
I never fired this rifle without killing the animal, 
but the weapon could not be claimed as a pleasant 
companion, the recoil being terrific. The arrange¬ 
ment of the cap upon a broad-mouthed nipple pre¬ 
vented the instantaneous explosion that would have 
taken place with a picrate of potash shell. A 
fraction of a second was required to explode the 
cap upon impact, and for the cap to ignite the 
bursting charge; this allowed sufficient time for 
the shell to penetrate to the centre of an elephant 
before the complete ignition had taken place. The 
destruction occasioned by the half-ounce of powder 
confined within the body of an elephant may be 
imagined. 
I tried this shell at the forehead of a hippo¬ 
potamus, which was an admirable test of penetra¬ 
tion before bursting. It went through the brain, 
knocked out the back of the skull, and exploded 
within the neck, completely destroying the vertebrae 
of the spine, which were reduced to pulp, and per¬ 
forating a tunnel blackened with gunpowder several 
feet in length, along which I could pass my arm to 
the shoulder. The terminus of the tunnel contained 
small fragments of lead and iron, pieces of which 
were found throughout the course of the explosion. 
The improvements in modern rifles will, within 
the next half-century, be utterly destructive to the 
