n. I believe that in Africa the
practice of standing before an elephant, expecting to kill him with one
shot, would be certain death to the hunter; and I would add, for the
information of those who may think that, because I met with a great
abundance of game here, they also might find rare sport, that the tsetse
exists all along both banks of the Zambesi, and there can be no hunting
by means of horses. Hunting on foot in this climate is such excessively
hard work, that I feel certain the keenest sportsman would very soon
turn away from it in disgust. I myself was rather glad, when furnished
with the excuse that I had no longer any balls, to hand over all the
hunting to my men, who had no more love for the sport than myself, as
they never engaged in it except when forced by hunger.

Some of them gave me a hint to melt down my plate by asking if it were
not lead. I had two pewter plates and a piece of zinc which I now melted
into bullets. I also spent the remainder of my handkerchiefs in buying
spears for them. My men frequently surrounded herds of buffaloes and
killed numbers of the calves. I, too, exerted myself greatly; but, as
I am now obliged to shoot with the left arm, I am a bad shot, and this,
with the lightness of the bullets, made me very unsuccessful. The more
the hunger, the less my success, invariably.

I may here add an adventure with an elephant of one who has had more
narrow escapes than any man living, but whose modesty has always
prevented him from publishing any thing about himself. When we were on
the banks of the Zouga in 1850, Mr. Oswell pursued one of these animals
into the dense, thick, thorny bushes met with on the margin of that
river, and to which the elephant usually flees for safety. He followed
through a narrow pathway by lifting up some of the branches and
forcing his way through the rest; but, when he had just got over this
difficulty, he saw the elephant, whose tail he had but got glimpses
of before, now rushing toward him. There was then no time to lift up
branches, so he tried to force the horse through them. He could not
effect a passage; and, as there was but an instant between the attempt
and failure, the hunter tried to dismount, but in doing this one foot
was caught by a branch, and the spur drawn along the animal's flank;
this made him spring away and throw the rider on the ground with his
face to the elephant, which, being in full chase, still went on. Mr.
Oswell saw the huge for