It is difficult to say what causes instantaneous death--whether the hole that the bullet makes and the vessels it cuts in its course, or the shock that is given to the stricken animal by its momentum. I am disposed to think it is as much the latter cause as the former, having so frequently witnessed cases in which an ounce ball striking an animal has merely served to increase its pace, while a two-ounce bullet striking in the same part a similar animal would drop it dead. With elephants the size of the bullet is even more essential--the small ones as Gordon Cumming describes it, "merely telling on their constitutions." It is almost useless to recommend a particular sort of gun, as people generally choose for themselves after all. Were I again to visit Africa, I would take a double-barrelled smooth bore of ten or eight to the pound, having strength and plain good workmanship as its only recommendations. A double-barrelled rifle of about the same calibre would be useful, taking care to have two stocks for each gun, and that the barrels could fit into either stock. I have more than once suffered from smashed stocks, and they are not easily replaced in Africa. A Colt's revolver would also be a very useful weapon, especially when used in the saddle against elands. It might be fired when going at speed, and with greater accuracy than could be attained, under similar conditions, by an ordinary gun. When I speak of the game in the immediate vicinity of the two towns of D'Urban and Pietermaritzburg, I refer to 1849 and '50, but I am given to understand that there has not been very much decrease since that time. The emigrant has other work to accomplish, and cannot be always shooting. A great deal of hard work must also be gone through before success in sport is certain, and sportsmen therefore are more scarce than would be at first considered probable. During the first three months that I tried my hand at buck shooting, I shot only five. After twelve months' experience, my bag, during ten weeks, was forty-seven; and I had refused several certain shots at antelopes during that time, as I was on the fresh spoor of buffaloes and elephants, and did not wish to disturb the bush. Far in the interior the game is unlimited in quantity, and the numbers are quite correctly spoken of by Harris, Cumming, and other sportsmen. Any one anxious for pure slaughter may there indulge his fancy to any extent; but I think that the amount of slain is no criterion of the amount of sport.