66 Seven Years in the Soudan.

Taking with us a soldier, who carried a reserve rifle, Ave proceeded with all possible precautions. The ground was damp, and the lions had taken a path which bore the print of their footsteps. We had followed them thus for about twenty minutes when we saw that the path was abruptly lost in grass and bushes, and we were just consulting which direction to take when we heard a noise at a little distance. I imagined that we were already face to face with the lions, but instead of this I had roused a buffalo-bull who, being startled, took a leap of fifteen paces. Only a few bushes separated us from the animal and we were therefore plainly visible. Anson wanted to fire, but I prevented him ; his small rifle and his little skill in aiming were sufficient motives for my interference. The buffalo halted for an instant, looking us full in the face, but the game was soon to be at an end. I took aim at him with the greatest calmness, and fired, when the buffalo fell, struck down as if by lightning. The explosive projectile had penetrated the brain, a part of Avhich was liquefied b}' the force of it, and issued from the ear.

The gun had hardly been fired when the soldier saw the lion and lioness take to flight at eighty paces' distance. Buffaloes are so abundant that one is almost certain to meet with some every time one goes to hunt. Since then I have killed four, and have taken a decided aversion to the buffalo, and in consequence have more than once abandoned a path marked with his traces. All animals flee before man, except the buffalo and the rhinoceros ; these two have the same instinct, and if the wind brings to their nostrils the scent of a man, they turn to meet him. With the buffalo there is this advantage, that, when he means to attack, he halts at exactly fifteen paces' distance, gently lowers his head, and rushes forward at a gallop ; one must seize the moment when he stands with his head lowered, otherwise it is too late. The native, when