Big Game Shooting, volume 1 (of 2)Phillipps-Wolley, Clive
General
Big Game Shooting, volume 1 (of 2)
Phillipps-Wolley, Clive
Game and game-birds; Hunting
the men, who had come on when they had heard the first two shots, and
who, on seeing that the beast was down, ran up like a pack of wolves to
‘chinja’ it--i.e. to cut its throat. Knowing, however, that it was not
dead, I ran forward and shouted to them not to go near; but they were
too excited to pay heed to my warning, and were standing all round it,
when, after a desperate effort to regain its legs, it jumped up, the
men flying in all directions. Catching sight of my second gun-bearer,
who had also gone up to it, and who at the time was carrying my 4-bore
rifle, it went straight for him. The man bolted, and, finding that
the buffalo was close upon him, dropped the rifle--the stock of which
was snapped short off at the grip by the buffalo treading on it--and
ran for dear life, the beast being within a few inches of him, and
giving vent to a furious grunt at each step. For some little time I
was unable to shoot, as the rest of the men were scattered and dodging
about between myself and the buffalo, so I shouted to the gun-bearer
to run round towards me, which he did, and I was able to fire, but the
8-bore bullet had apparently no effect on the infuriated beast. At the
same moment the man doubled and ran straight away from me, making for
a small tree about 100 yards off, twisting and turning as he ran, but
the buffalo still stuck close to him and doubled as quickly as the man
did. All this time I was tearing along in pursuit, hoping to get a
shot, but dared not fire for fear of hitting the man, who was dodging
about from side to side, and I was some 60 yards behind when they
reached the tree. This the man endeavoured to catch hold of so as to
swing himself round, but he was going so fast that the impetus caused
his hand to slip, and he tripped up and fell forward flat on his face
into the grass, which was some 2½ feet high under the shade of the
tree. The buffalo, being so close to him at the time, overshot him, but
whipped round, and I twice saw it give a vicious dig at him with its
head and then kneel down two or three times, when I could only see its
stern above the grass. By the time I got close up the buffalo was in a
kneeling position; and, thinking the man was probably dead, I raised my
rifle to fire, when the man, whom I could not see in the longish grass,
raised his head and shoulders from underneath the beast’s stomach
directly in the line of fire, obliging me to divert the muzzle until
he wriggled himself out of line, when a couple of bullets at close
quarters settled this cunning, savage, yet plucky beast. The man’s back
and the calves of his legs were covered with blood from the buffalo’s
mouth and nostrils during the run, showing how very close it had been
to him all the time. He told me afterwards that when he fell he turned
over on to his back, and the buffalo made a bad shot each time it
lunged at him with its head, or tried to kneel on him, owing perhaps to
the fact that it was weak and dazed from the loss of blood, and he was
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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