Whilst on the subject of the comparative danger of various wild beasts it may be interesting briefly to summarize the views of other experienced hunters. Cuninghame and Tarlton place the elephant and the lion equal first, with the buffalo third. Sir Frederick Jackson and William Judd say the buffalo is easily first as a dangerous foe; whilst Captain Stigand assigns the danger in the following order, viz.: lion, elephant, rhinoceros, leopard, buffalo. Sir Samuel Baker makes a more curious order--elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, and lion the last. Oddly enough, only one hunter, namely Drummond, places the rhinoceros as the worst, but it must be remembered that when he hunted in South Africa heavy rifles were scarce and somewhat inadequate. Nevertheless, despite all these very divided opinions, it is generally agreed amongst all professional hunters, both Boers and British, with whom I have discussed the question, both in East and South Africa, that the buffalo is perhaps the most dangerous animal, because he is so hard to stop and offers generally so sudden, so determined, and so unfavourable a target when actually charging. When actually wounded and charging there is little doubt that the buffalo is the toughest of all, because he bursts out suddenly from a concealed spot and presents no vulnerable target, and I know from actual experience how helpless a man feels when one of these brutes comes grunting fiercely at his heels. Of course no man of sense does go poking about in dense bush after a wounded buffalo, but then all hunters are foolhardy sometimes and trouble ensues. We hate to leave a wounded animal, especially if it carries a good head. Thus have nearly all the numerous fatal accidents happened. A charging elephant is nearly always turned by a frontal shot, whereas a buffalo is never stopped unless it is mortally hit, but the chief danger in elephant-hunting seems to be (so Neumann thought) from outside sources--that is from vicious cows in the same herd which may be encountered suddenly. Neumann was an exceedingly brave man, and in his first trips was only armed with an ordinary .256 Mannlicher throwing a solid bullet. His method was to creep right in amongst a herd and shoot the best bull through the heart. This often did not kill it at once, and rendered him liable to be charged suddenly by other members of the herd. Wherefore he rightly estimates that his own form of hunting was the most dangerous of all African hunting. When he got a double .450 high-velocity Rigby he killed elephants much more easily and did not have nearly so many narrow escapes. It therefore seems to be the case that, armed with modern weapons, the hunter of elephants runs no especial risk if he does not try in the first instance to get too close to his quarry and gives it a side shot in the right place, whilst in the case of a charging animal the lion is the easiest to stop and the elephant the easiest to turn and the buffalo the hardest to kill.