106 EAST AFRICA AND ITS BIG GAME. 
it is next to impossible for the hunter to avoid the 
sudden charge that is almost sure to ensue if the buffalo 
sights him first, and he will find no time to get in a 
shot. In the open plain the danger is reduced to a 
minimum, as a reliable eight-bore rifle will stop any 
buffalo-charge. I am supported in this opinion by 
Mr. Selous in his most interesting and instructive 
narrative of “ A Hunter’s Wandering in Africa,” and 
also by Mr. Thomson, who describes in his equally 
attractive book, “Through Masai Land,” how he was 
tossed and nearly killed by one of these brutes. I 
recollect seeing a Swahili porter who had survived the 
attack of a buffalo, but his face was so smashed that it 
was difficult to discover where his mouth began or 
ended, and his nose and eyes were all mixed up together 
in the most hopeless confusion. 
II- said the men with him quite lost their 
heads with excitement when he knocked over his first 
buffalo, and fired their carbines into the ground and 
into the beast’s quarters until they had peppered it 
all over. 
We started early next morning, and reached Man- 
dara’s dominions in about five hours after an uphill 
march of about fifteen miles. On the way we obtained 
splendid views of the forest of Kahe and the surround¬ 
ing plain and bush, stretching for miles to the south, 
bordered on the east side by the Pari mountains, and 
on the west by a high range called the Soghonoi, 
inhabited by the W’Arusha : beyond, we sighted for 
the first time the high and pointed peak of Meru, a 
