138 
African Game Trails 
had our double-barrels, with the Winches¬ 
ters as spare guns, while Cuninghame car¬ 
ried a 577, and Heatley a magazine rifle. 
Cautiously threading our way along the 
•edge of the swamp, we got within a hundred 
and fifty yards of the buffalo before we were 
perceived. There were four bulls, grazing 
close by the edge of the swamp, their black 
bodies glistening in the early sun-rays, 
their massive horns showing white, and the 
cow herons perched on their backs. They 
stared sullenly at us with outstretched heads 
from under their great frontlets of horn. 
The biggest of the four stood a little out 
from the other three, and at him I fired, 
the bullet telling with a smack on the tough 
hide and going through the lungs. We had 
been afraid they would at once turn into 
the papyrus, but instead of this they started 
straight across our front directly for the 
open country. This was a piece of huge 
good luck. Kermit put his first barrel into 
the second bull, and I my second barrel 
into one of the others, after which it became 
impossible to say which bullet struck which 
animal, as the firing became general. They 
ran a quarter of a mile into the open, and 
then the big bull I had first shot, and which 
had no other bullet in him, dropped dead, 
while the other three, all of which were 
wounded, halted beside him. We walked 
toward them, rather expecting a charge; but 
when we were still over two hundred yards 
away they started back for the swamp, and 
we began firing. The distance being long, 
I used my Winchester. Aiming well be¬ 
fore one bull, he dropped to the shot as if 
poleaxed, falling straight on his back with 
his legs kicking; but in a moment he was 
up again and after the others. Later. I 
found that the bullet, a full-metal patch, had 
struck him in the head but did not pene¬ 
trate to the brain, and merely stunned him 
for the moment. All the time we kept run¬ 
ning diagonally to their line of flight. They 
were all three badly wounded, and when they 
reached the tall rank grass, high as a man’s 
head, which fringed the papyrus swamp, the 
two foremost lay down, while the last one, 
the one I had floored with the Winchester, 
turned, and with nose outstretched began 
to come toward us. He was badly crippled, 
however, and with a soft-nosed bullet from 
my heavy Holland I knocked him down, 
this time for good. The other two then rose, 
and though each was again hit they reached 
the swamp, one of them to our right, the 
other to the left where the papyrus came out 
in a point. 
We decided to go after the latter, and, ad¬ 
vancing very cautiously toward the edge of 
the swamp, put in the three big dogs. A 
moment after, they gave tongue within the 
papyrus; then we heard the savage grunt 
of the buffalo and saw its form just within 
the reeds; and as the rifles cracked, down it 
went. But it was not dead, for we heard it 
grunt savagely, and the dogs bayed as loud¬ 
ly as ever. Heatley now mounted his trained 
shooting-pony and rode toward the place, 
while we covered him with our rifles, his 
plan being to run right across our front if 
the bull charged. The bull was past charg¬ 
ing, lying just within the reeds, but he was 
still able to do damage, for in another 
minute one of the dogs came out by us and 
ran straight back to the farm-house, where 
we found him dead on our return. He had 
been caught by the buffalo’s horns when he 
went in too close. Heatley, a daring fellow, 
with great confidence in both his horse and 
his rifle, pushed forward as we came up, and 
saw the bull lying on the ground while the 
two other dogs bit and worried it; and he 
put a bullet through its head. 
The remaining bull got off into the swamp, 
where a week later Heatley found his dead 
body. Fortun-ately the head proved to be in 
less good condition than any of the others, as 
one horn was broken off about half-way up; 
so that if any of the four had to escape, it 
was well that this should have been the one. 
Our three bulls were fine trophies. The 
largest, with the largest horns, was the first 
killed, being the one that fell to my first 
bullet; yet it was the youngest of the three. 
The other two were old bulls. The second 
one killed had smaller horns than the other, 
but the bosses met in the middle of the fore¬ 
head for a space of several inches, making 
a solid shield. I had just been reading a 
pamphlet by a German specialist who had 
divided the African buffalo into fifteen or 
twenty different species, based upon differ¬ 
ences in various pairs of horns. The worth 
of such fine distinctions, when made on in¬ 
sufficient data, can be gathered from the 
fact that on the principles of specific divi¬ 
sion adopted in the pamphlet in question, 
the three bulls we had shot would have 
represented certainly two and possibly three 
different species. 
