Except an elephant, there is nothing harder to stop than a charging buffalo, as, when once he has made up his mind, he means business; there is no turning him, and if he misses he will round and come again and hunt a man down like a dog. Holding his head in the air as he does in practice, and not low down as in the picture-books, he gives no mark except the chest, which is rarely a dropping shot. Having hacked off his head (the buffalo’s), we went in pursuit of our caravan, and found that Mahony had pitched camp in the most perfect spot imaginable. A strip of open park-like bush ran down from the mountains, cutting the vast Gorongoza plain into two portions, and abutting on the river, where it had spread into a small lagoon with banks 20 ft. high. Beyond lay another plain stretching away to the bush that lies at the foot of the ridge which runs north and south, and is the watershed of the Urema and the coast. In all directions from our camp we could see herds of game grazing. Flocks of fowl flighted up and down the watercourse, huge crocodiles leered evilly at us as they floated like logs on the oily water, broken only by the plomp-plomp of the numerous fish, and now and then the head of a mud-turtle rose like a ghost from below, without even a ripple, drew a long hissing breath, and as silently vanished. As there was lions’ spoor by the water, we strolled out after tea and dropped a brace of zebra by the edge of the bush. After an eventful night, during which leopards coughed, lions roared, hyænas dashed into camp and bolted with my best waterbuck head, we all turned out early. Sharp went down the river, while Mahony and I went to our baits. The first had completely vanished, and the second had been dragged some three hundred yards under the shade of a palm-tree. Here we picked up the spoor of a big lion, who had evidently got our wind as we left camp. We followed for about a mile along the bush, when Mahony saw him watching us round the corner of an ant-hill. The lion, seeing that he was observed, doubled like a flash, and before Mahony could fire, had dashed into a small patch of thick jungle. We lost no time in following, and were carefully picking our way through the undergrowth, when I heard a deep grunt about twenty yards to my right, and saw him, tail straight in the air, vanishing through the bush. Mahony rushed along the jungle; while I made a desperate burst through the thorn into the open. I just caught a glimpse of the lion going through the scattered palms towards the open plain. When I reached the end of the palms, he was going hard about two hundred yards away. Using the double .500 magnum, I removed his tooth with the first barrel, and with the second pulled him up short with a shot in the hind leg. Mahony then arrived on the scene and gave him a .500, while I finished him off with two shots from the .303. He was a very old lion with his teeth much