I Had Advanced Towards Them Upon The Neck Of Land Upon Which
They Stood; There Was, Therefore, No Retreat For Them Unless They Took
To The Water.
They perceived this themselves, but they preferred the
bolder plan of charging through all opposition and then reaching the
main land.
After a few preliminary grunts and tosses of the head, one of
the bulls charged straight at me at full gallop; he was not followed by
his companions, who were still irresolute; and, when within forty yards,
he sprang high in the air, and pitching upon his horns, he floundered
upon his back as the rifle-ball passed through his neck and broke his
spine. I immediately commenced reloading, but the ball was only half-way
down the barrel when the remaining bull, undismayed by the fate of his
companion, rushed on at full speed. Snatching the long two-ounce rifle
from a gun-bearer, I made a lucky shot. The ball must have passed
through his heart, as he fell stone dead.
The three cows remained passive spectators of the death of their mates,
although I was convinced by their expression that they would eventually
show fight. I was soon reloaded, and not wishing to act simply on the
defensive, and thus run the risk of a simultaneous onset, I fired at the
throat of the most vicious of the party. The two-ounce ball produced no
other effect than an immediate charge. She bounded towards me, and,
although bleeding at the mouth, the distance was so short that she would
have been into me had I not stopped her with the four-ounce rifle, which
brought her to the ground when within fifteen paces; here she lay
disabled, but not dead, and again I reloaded as fast as possible.
The two remaining cows appeared to have taken a lesson from the fate of
their comrades; and showing no disposition to charge, I advanced towards
them to within twenty yards. One of the cows now commended tearing the
muddy ground with her horns, and thus offered a certain shot, which I
accordingly took, and dropped her dead with a ball in the nape of the
neck. This was too much for the remaining buffalo; she turned to plunge
into the lake, but the four-ounce through her shoulder brought her down
before she could reach the water, into which the three calves had
sprung, and were swimming for the main shore. I hit the last calf in the
head with a double-barrelled gun, and he immediately sank; and I missed
another calf with the left-hand barrel; therefore two escaped. I sent a
man into the water to find the dead calf, which he soon did, and hauled
it to the shore; and having reloaded, I proceeded to examine the hits on
the dead buffaloes. It was fortunate that I had reloaded; for I had no
sooner approached to within three or four yards of the cow that I had
left dying, when she suddenly sprang to her feet, and would have
charged, had I not killed her by a ball in the head from a light
double-barrel that I was then carrying.
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