Cigar--besides two Kafirs who were shooting for him, and carried their own guns and a supply of ammunition--had only three spare boys who carried his blankets, powder, Kafir corn, and a supply of fresh meat. He himself carried his own rifle, a heavy old four-bore muzzle-loader. "As for me," says Selous, "having had to leave two of my Kafirs to look after my horses and oxen, I had but one youngster with me, who carried my blanket and spare ammunition, whilst I shouldered my own old four-bore muzzle-loader, and carried besides a leather bag filled with powder, and a pouch containing twenty four-ounce round bullets. Though this was hardly doing the thing _en grand seigneur_, I was young and enthusiastic in those days and trudged along under the now intense heat with a light heart." It must be remembered that at this time nearly all the old Boer and English elephant-hunters, such as men like Piet Schwarz, William Finaughty, Hartley, the Jennings family, J. Giffard, T. Leask, and H. Biles, had given up the game of elephant-hunting when horses could be no longer used and the elephants themselves must be pursued on foot in the "fly." Only George Wood, Jan Viljoen,[6] and the greatest hunter of all in South Africa, Petrus Jacobs, still pursued the elephant, but the difficulty, danger, distance, and scarcity of elephant haunts were now so defined and the results so small that none save the very hardiest were able to follow them. At this time (1873) Piet Jacobs was undoubtedly the most famous hunter in South Africa. During a long life, most of which was spent in the Mashuna and Matabele country, he is supposed to have shot between 400 and 500 bull elephants, mostly killed by hunting them from horseback, but even after as an old man he killed many on foot in the "fly" country. Unlike most Boers, he constantly attacked lions whenever he had the opportunity, and Selous considers that he shot "more lions than any man that ever lived." His usual method in hunting these animals was, if the first shot missed, to loose three or four strong "Boer" dogs, which quickly ran the lion to bay. Then, as a rule, it was easily killed. One day, however, in 1873, on the Umniati river he was terribly mauled by a lion that charged after being bayed by his three dogs. His shot at the charging lion missed, and he was thrown to the ground and severely bitten on the thigh, left arm, and hand. The dogs, however, now came up and saved his life, but it was a long time before he recovered. He said that, unlike the experience of Dr. Livingstone, the bites of the lion were extremely painful, at which Selous humorously remarks that the absence of suffering in such a case is an especial mercy "which Providence does not extend beyond ministers of the Gospel."