But the queerest experience I think I ever had with a rhinoceros was one which happened not far from the scene of the last adventure, and during the same year 1873.

Not having come across elephants for some time, my Kafirs and I were just out of meat—for in those days I seldom shot other animals as long as I had elephant meat to eat, for fear of disturbing the more valuable game—when we came one day on the fresh tracks of two black rhinoceroses, and after following the spoor for a short distance, suddenly sighted the animals themselves lying down in a rather open grassy piece of country. We all crouched down instantly, and as the rhinoceroses never moved, and the wind was favourable, it was soon evident that they had neither seen nor heard us, and were still quite unconscious of danger. Taking one of my heavy, clumsy, old four-bore muzzle-loading elephant guns—the only weapons I then possessed—I at once commenced to creep slowly towards them through the grass, which was not very long.

I had approached to within twenty yards or so of the sleeping animals, and had just raised myself to a sitting position for a shot from behind a small bush, when one of them, which I saw from the thickness of its horns was the bull, stood up, and commenced to walk slowly towards my very inadequate shelter. I do not think that it had any suspicion of my presence, but it was soon within ten yards of the little bush behind which I sat, and as it was still walking slowly towards me it was necessary to do something.

As its head was held in such a position that it covered its whole chest, I resolved to try and fire so as just to miss its horns, and strike it in the front of the head above the eyes. Even if I did not succeed in doing this, but hit one of its horns instead, which was very likely, considering the clumsy weapon I was using, I thought that the shock caused by the heavy bullet would be sure to discompose my opponent sufficiently to give me time to run back to the Kafirs and get my second gun before it thought of charging.

When I fired, the rhinoceros's legs seemed to give way under it, and it just sank to the ground, and then, rolling on to its side, lay quite still, and, as I thought, dead. "Tutu," shouted the Kafirs from behind me, meaning "It's done for," and all of them came running up, the cow having jumped up and made off immediately I fired at her companion.

We now all walked together to where the fallen animal lay apparently quite dead. My four-ounce round bullet had made a large hole in the front of its head, into which I and several of the Kafirs pushed our fingers as far as they would go. We then went to the nearest tree, some sixty or seventy yards away, and after resting my two elephant guns—the one still unloaded—against its stem, and placing all our scanty baggage on the ground in its shade, returned to cut up what we believed to be the carcase of a dead animal.

One of my Kafirs, by name Soga, a big strong Makalaka, at once plunged his assegai into the body of the prostrate rhinoceros and commenced to cut through the thick skin, pulling the blade of the assegai towards him with a sawing motion. This incision should have extended from near the top of the back behind the shoulder-blade to the bottom of the chest, and would have been the first step in peeling the whole hide from the upper surface of the body, preparatory to disembowelling the carcase and cutting up the meat; but when Soga had made a cut about two and a half feet long in its side, the limbs of the rhinoceros began to move spasmodically, and it suddenly raised its head and brought it down again with a thump on the ground.

From that moment it commenced to struggle frantically, and was evidently fast regaining consciousness. I shouted to Soga to try and stab it in the heart before it got on its legs; but as he only made a very feeble attempt to do so, I ran up, and snatching the assegai from him, endeavoured to stab the struggling animal to death myself. But it was now fast regaining strength, and with every effort to rise it threw up its head and brought it down on the ground again with a thump.

I managed to plunge the heavy assegai through the cut in its skin and deep into its side, but with a sudden spasmodic movement it broke the shaft in two, leaving a short piece attached to the blade sticking in its body. In another moment it was standing on its legs, but kept reeling about like a drunken man. I now ran to the tree where the guns had been left, and taking the loaded one, aimed a shot at the still staggering rhinoceros, but, as not infrequently happened in the old muzzle-loading days, it missed fire I quickly put on a fresh cap, but as that missed fire too, I concluded that the nipple had got stopped up in some way, and so took up the gun with which I had originally wounded the rhinoceros, and commenced to reload it in frantic haste.

Just as I got the bullet rammed down, however, and before I could put the cap on the nipple, the rhinoceros, which all this time had been making a series of short runs, first in one direction and then in another, but had always been quite close to us, started off in a straight line, putting on more pace at every step; and although we ran as hard as we could, we never overtook it, and I did not fire at it again. My bullet no doubt passed above the animal's brain-pan, and must have lodged in the muscles of its neck, only stunning it temporarily; but it really seemed to be absolutely dead for so long a time after falling to the ground, that its recovery and eventual escape, after receiving a four-ounce bullet through the upper part of the head, and having a gash cut in its side at least two feet long, not to mention a deep stab in the region of the heart, is, I think, one of the most remarkable incidents I have ever witnessed during a long experience of African hunting.

Another equally curious, but far more exasperating experience occurred to me early in May 1877, when I was hunting with two friends, Dorehill and Kingsley, on one of the tributaries of the river Daka, about sixty miles to the south of the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi. At the time of which I am writing buffaloes literally swarmed all over this part of the country, and it was in order to shoot a few of these animals and lay in a supply of good fat meat, that we had left our waggons standing at a place known as the Baobab vley, and made an excursion to the east, necessarily on foot because of the tse-tse fly. Both buffaloes and tse-tse flies, I may say, ceased to exist in this district long long ago.

One evening I was coming home, and within a mile of camp—all my Kafirs and Bushmen carrying heavy loads of meat cut from two fat buffalo cows which I had shot during the day—when, whilst we were passing through a thick patch of scrubby thorn bush, a shot was fired a short distance to our right, immediately followed by a loud purring growl; then all was quiet again.

Calling to my Bushman gun-carrier to keep close, I ran in the direction of the sound, and soon came upon Kingsley quite alone and looking rather scared. Having a sore heel, he had remained in camp; but it appeared that having seen a buffalo bull crossing the open valley on the other side of which our camp was situated, he had gone after it all by himself. Being quite strange to the country and knowing nothing about hunting, Kingsley had lost sight of the buffalo amongst the thorn scrub, and not being able to follow its tracks, was making his way back to camp, when he suddenly saw an animal moving through the bush about twenty yards ahead of him, which he took to be an impala antelope, as he could only see it very indistinctly. He immediately fired at it through the scrub, when, to his horror, a lioness thrust her head into the open, and staring fixedly at him, gave a low growl. Kingsley said he stood quite still, but was afraid to reload his rifle or make any movement for fear of further exciting the savage-looking animal. The latter, however, after having gazed steadily at him for a few moments, turned and trotted off.

We now examined the place where the lioness had been standing when Kingsley fired at her, but could find no blood, and I have no doubt that he missed her. We then tried to track her; but her soft feet had left so little trace on the hard ground that even my Bushmen could not follow it, so we gave it up and all returned to camp together.

As I took my rifle from the Bushman who had been carrying it, I saw that the hammer was gone. This rifle was a single-barrelled ten-bore, with under lever action and a hammer. On examining it, I found that the screw that had held the hammer in place on the tumbler had evidently worked loose and fallen out, with the result that the hammer had dropped off. Now I felt sure that just before I had heard Kingsley's shot I had seen the hammer on the rifle, and believed that it must have fallen off whilst we were running a distance of not more than four hundred yards. I was very much annoyed at the prospect of having my favourite rifle put out of action indefinitely, although the Bushmen were confident that they would be able to find the lost hammer the next day. They said they would follow the tracks of my gun-carrier and myself, where we had been running, inch by inch on their hands and knees, burning the scanty grass as they went along. In spite of their confidence, I must say I had very little hope that they would be successful, and lay down to sleep that night with a heavy heart, for I thought that my well-tried and favourite rifle would have to be laid on the shelf for the remainder of the year.

On the following day, after having sent my gun-carrier and two other Bushmen to look for the hammer of my rifle, Dorehill and I went out hunting, leaving Kingsley in charge of the camp. On this occasion I took with me, in place of my ten-bore, a single-barrelled eight-bore weapon, which I had often used before, as I had only lately sold it to Dorehill. This rifle was fitted with a hair trigger, which one set by pushing the trigger forwards. I knew that my friend had taken the lock of this rifle to pieces, and cleaned and oiled it just before we left the waggons, but I did not know that he had done anything more than this. It afterwards turned out, however, that he had, as he said, "just touched the detenter" with a fine file, but unfortunately had taken enough off it to throw the mechanism connected with the hair trigger out of order. This, however, I only found out to my sorrow later on.

About two hours after we had left camp, we emerged from the open forest, with which most of the country was covered, upon a broad open valley, devoid of bush, but covered with a thick growth of yellow grass some four feet high. This open valley was bounded on its further side by a rocky ridge some twenty feet in height, which formed the edge of a level expanse of country covered with small scattered trees, and a very scanty growth of fine grass, of quite a different character to that growing in the valley below. Down the centre of the open ground ran a small stream of water, a tributary of the Daka river. We had just crossed this stream, and were within fifty yards of the steep ridge that bounded the further side of the valley, when two of our Kafirs, who had been after a honey-bird, and who were coming diagonally towards us through the long grass, and had just reached the stream about one hundred yards below us, suddenly shouted out "Isilouan, isilouan!" ("Lions, lions!"), and came running towards us. Seizing the eight-bore rifle from the shoulder of the Kafir who was carrying it just behind me, I ran towards them, calling out, "Where are they? Which way have they gone?" "They jumped out of the bed of the stream," they replied, "and went forward through the grass towards the ridge."

I did not wait to hear anything more, but ran to the ridge as hard as I could, closely followed by the Kafir who had been carrying my rifle. Climbing quickly to the top, I turned and looked eagerly for the lions, which I had hoped to be able to see from my vantage-ground in the grass below me. But I saw nothing, and so began to walk quickly along the edge of the low bluff, keeping my eyes as wide open as possible. Suddenly I heard a slight noise a little ahead of me, as of a small stone being moved; and turning my eyes in the direction of the sound, saw a lioness just emerging from the grass at the foot of the ridge. She was on a little game-path, and evidently intending to come up to the higher ground where I was standing; so, whispering the one word "aima" ("stand") to the Kafir behind me—a good staunch boy—I remained perfectly still, scarcely daring to breathe. The lioness walked slowly upwards and was immediately followed by a fine lion. One behind the other, these two magnificent brutes strolled leisurely up the steep path until they stood on the level ground above.

Just as they came to the top, the lion walked partially behind the lioness, whose hind-quarters then covered most of his head and shoulders. I don't think I was more than from twenty to thirty yards away from them, and there was not a bush or anything else between us but a scanty crop of short grass less than a foot in height, yet neither of them seemed at first to notice anything. I, on my part, remained absolutely motionless, not wishing to fire until I could get a clear view of the lion. After they had walked broadside on to me, for perhaps fifteen yards from the edge of the bluff, the lioness stopped, and turning her head, looked towards where I and the Kafir stood. The lion took another step or two forwards, and then also stopped and looked at us. They were standing exactly broadside on to me, close alongside of one another, the lion perhaps a foot in advance, so that he looked at us from just beyond his companion's head.

Now was my opportunity, and did ever hunter have such a chance before, I wonder? The eight-bore elephant rifle I carried could certainly have driven a bullet through two lions, and had I hit the lioness in the middle of the shoulder—and at thirty yards I could hardly have helped doing so—the bullet would have passed clean through her, and caught the lion just behind the shoulders, an equally fatal shot, as it would have passed through the big blood-vessels of both lungs. My rifle was already on full cock and the hair trigger set, and, raising it to my shoulder, I took a cool and careful aim and pulled the trigger. Click went the hammer, and just came down to the half-cock. This performance I repeated at least half-a-dozen times, but always with the same result.

All this time the lions stood perfectly still, watching me quietly and in rather a sleepy kind of way. Then the lioness walked forwards again, closely followed by her companion, but after taking a few steps they broke into a trot, which soon changed to a heavy lumbering canter. I ran after them as hard as I could, but soon lost sight of them amongst some small bushy shrubs.

Running into and through these bushes, I found myself close to the edge of the bluff again which skirted the open grass valley, for the lions had run round in a half-circle. Feeling sure they had descended to the lower ground, I ran on to the edge of the ridge, and at once saw the lion standing just below me at the foot of the bluff, and close to the edge of the long grass. The lioness I could not see. I don't think the lion was ten yards away from me. He had evidently heard me coming, and stood quite still looking at me whilst I tried three times to fire at him, but the hammer would not go beyond the half-cock.

Then realising my helplessness, and mad with rage and mortification, I caught my useless rifle by the barrel with both hands and threw it at the lion below me. It clattered down amongst the stones close to him, causing him to throw up his tail with a loud purr and disappear into the long grass. The rifle, though somewhat bruised and dinted, was not much the worse for its fall. I think this episode is about the worst piece of bad luck I have ever met with. No such chance of shooting two lions at one shot had ever been offered to me before or has ever occurred since, and it was surely the very irony of fate that this unique opportunity should have fallen to my lot on the one and only day when my favourite old ten-bore was useless to me, for the Bushmen not only found the hammer which I had lost the day before but the little screw that held it on the tumbler as well!