6o 
WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WAYS 
CHAP. 
and it would be endless to record the various 
examples of its power, but it may be instructive to 
give an account of an incident which will show by 
comparison the danger of small rifles in the pursuit 
of such hard-skinned beasts as buffaloes. 
Mr. Frederick Dick, who was subsequently 
murdered at Negombo by a shot from a malefactor 
whom he, as Police Magistrate, attempted to 
capture, was shooting with me upon one occasion 
at my happy hunting-grounds, Minneria lake and 
plain; buffaloes were swarming. The 3-oz. was 
in the best of humours, and its performance led 
my friend Dick to imagine that buffaloes were, 
after all, not such resolute beasts as had been 
described. He was armed with a ridiculous single- 
barrelled rifle, No. 20 spherical ball. He had fired 
a number of shots from this toy uselessly, and I 
had killed the various buffaloes with the heavy 
weapon; I prevailed upon him to double his charge 
of powder. After some time, during which we had 
walked a considerable distance along the margin 
of the lake, we saw a solitary bull buffalo in a 
state of great excitement, on the opposite side of a 
small creek leading from the lake towards the 
jungle, about half a mile distant. As we drew 
nearer, the buffalo faced us, and tore up the turf 
with its horns, at the same time looking down the 
perpendicular bank, as though questioning the 
possibility of a descent. We now arrived at the 
creek ; there could not have been a more favourable 
position for Dick’s little rifle with a double charge 
