7 2 
WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WA YS 
CHAP. 
minutes when I heard a shot, then another, followed 
by a regular volley. My people returned with the 
head of the buffalo and a large quantity of meat, 
but they also carried the body of my best man, who, 
when leading the way through the high reeds upon 
the traces of blood, actually stumbled over the 
buffalo lying in the swamp, and the light guns failed 
to stop its charge. 
The crooked horn had hooked him beneath the 
ear, and penetrating completely through the neck, 
had torn out the throat, as though it had been cut. 
The savage beast had then knelt upon the body and 
stamped it into the muddy ground, until it fell dead 
before the united fire of thirty men. 
I have never experienced any great difficulty 
with African buffaloes, for the best of reasons, that 
I have been extremely cautious, and have always 
shot with very powerful rifles. Baron Harnier, a 
Prussian, was the first unprofessional hunter to visit 
the White Nile as an independent traveller. He 
had his own vessel and two German servants, both 
of whom died of fever. Although he had great 
experience in buffalo-shooting, he was eventually 
killed by a large bull, which attacked his native 
servant after having received a death-wound from 
a single - barrelled rifle. Being unloaded, Baron 
Harnier attacked the buffalo with his clubbed rifle, 
in the hope of driving it away from his servant, who 
was lying upon the ground ; instead of this, the bull 
turned upon its new assailant, and stamped and 
gored his body beyond recognition. His large gold 
