rifle, and
the chance came that same afternoon. For when about six miles out from
Port Elizabeth, I met a Boer who was trekking in from Uitenhage, and who
informed me that, about a mile back, he had been obliged to abandon one
of his oxen in a dying condition; and, sure enough, a quarter of an hour
later we saw the poor beast lying by the side of the road, with the
aasvogels, or vultures, already gathered about it. A round dozen or
more were squatted on the ground in a circle round the dying ox, while
others, mere specks in the deep--blue sky, were winging their way to it
from all quarters. The method of these new arrivals was to maintain
their lofty flight until they arrived immediately above their destined
prey; then they would begin to circle slowly downward in a wide spiral,
finally hovering for some three or four seconds at a height of about
twenty yards before awkwardly settling upon the ground. This was my
chance; an aasvogel more or less in South Africa mattered nothing, there
were plenty of them and to spare, and they were such disgusting
creatures that I had no compunction at all about abandoning my usual
rule, and shooting one or two of them merely in order to test my new
weapon. And a very good test they afforded too, for although their
downward sailing upon outstretched, motionless wings was a perfectly
steady movement, it was rather deceptive as to speed, and, the movement
being a circling one, it was necessary to fire at exactly the right
instant, or the range would be wrong and a miss would result.

I decided to begin the test by firing at a descending vulture at what
was supposed to be the extreme range of accuracy of the weapon, namely,
five hundred yards; and as this was a good long distance--quite far
enough to enable the bird to swerve at the flash and so cause me to
miss--I came to the conclusion that the right thing to do would be to
allow the vulture to sweep past until it was flying away from me, and
then pull the trigger. Accordingly I loaded the piece, threw up the
five-hundred-yard sight, and then walked forward, choosing a particular
bird as I did so, and following it with my eye until I judged it to be
at the right distance and position; then I flung up the rifle, pressed
it firmly to my shoulder, covered the vulture with the sights, and
fired. The next second I saw the feathers fly, the great wings flapped
once, convulsively, and as the "smack" of the bullet reached my ears the
bir