NATIVES BAD SHOTS 
115 
faction, that the Chobe was sinking. The river, too, was 
much narrower than below, hardly more than half a mile broad, 
though still covered with reeds. Here I killed a fine letzwee 
ram which was heading a small troop towards the reeds a<s we 
came up. He happened to halt about two hundred and fifty 
yards off, raising his graceful head into the air, and, stamping 
with his feet, seemed to object to the intrusion, when a bullet 
from the long gun laid him low. The new bearers were very 
much surprised at the accuracy of the shot, and declared their 
belief that it was an accident, for, while I was sighting at what 
to them appeared an impossible distance, they asked in con¬ 
temptuous tones what it was I meant to do. A native is no 
shot anywhere at anything like a range. Perhaps there are 
occasional exceptions among the Basutos and Zulus, although I 
never yet have met a single one who understood the manipu¬ 
lation of the sights. In the Zulu war, for instance, the warriors 
always elevated the sights and shot over the top, believing that, 
because the bullets then travelled further, the elevated sight 
gave the charge more strength, never understanding that the 
resulting trajectory, which carried the bullets safe over our 
heads, had anything to do with it. But for this fact the battle 
of Ulundi would have had a far different termination. Three 
thousand regulars and volunteers, formed in hollow square, were 
exposed in the open for three-quarters of an hour to the inces¬ 
sant fire of over twenty thousand Zulus, and sustained only a 
loss of nine killed and seventy-two wounded. This is the 
reason that the Zulus are more formidable with the assegai than 
with guns, for with the former they always seek opportunities to 
make rushes from cover at short distances, or out of the dark¬ 
ness, to get into a hand-to-hand melee, whereas they believe 
themselves capable of conducting an attack in the open, and in 
daylight, when they have rifles in their hands. 
There was much spoor of large game along our route, 
especially rhinoceros, which we came upon fresh every mile 
or two, with the two peculiar deep furrows this animal makes 
with his two fore paws when scratching over his droppings. 
