CH A P T E R III
F rom the coast to Hameye there had been little occasion
for using our rifles,'— a few water-buck and one
or two small antelope made up our game-bag, — but
from this point onward game was much more plentiful,
and our rifles were in constant requisition.
Were it not for the rifle, the difficulty of provisioning
one’s caravan in Africa would be much increased. It
is not for sport alone that one shoots in that country;
though it is safe to state that the desire to slay is generally
present in every fully developed and vigorous man.
It has been the fashion of late years to draw a
marked distinction between scientific travellers and
sportsmen, and the comparison has not always been
favourable to the latter. Many men who from physical
reasons or inexperience have not been qualified
to use a rifle with success, have taken pains to disclose
this fact by saying they were no sportsmen;
thereby seeking to imply that their lack of sporting
instinct was more or less to their credit. On the
other hand, there have been, unquestionably,. many
persons whos in the name of sport, have indulged
in a wanton slaughter of God’s creatures. But, happily,
there is a mean between these two extremes.
Both Lieutenant von Hohnel and I had in our former
African experience indulged to the top of our bent the
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desire for sport; but even then we had not been guilty
of any unnecessary slaughter of game; for what we shot
had been eaten by our men, so that the brute lives we
sacrificed went to increase the vitality of human beings
who stood much in need of it.
Bearing in mind the necessity of being fully prepared
not only to slay game for the pot, but also in
self-defence, to check the rush of dangerous animals,
we had expended much time and forethought on the
formation of our battery. Upon his former journey
Lieutenant von Hohnel had used with great success
an eight-bore express rifle; and although I, on account
of its weight and the poor results I achieved with
large weapons, was prejudiced against the express rifle,
we took with us one of these weapons, made by
Messrs. Holland & Holland, of New Bond Street, London.
We also had three .577 express rifles and one
.500 from the same makers.
During my former journey George had achieved excellent
results upon antelope and thin-skinned animals
with a .45/90 Winchester, and I had used this weapon,
and found it perfectly satisfactory, upon a shooting-trip
to the Rockies; therefore we took with us three Winchesters.
Having armed the Soudanese with the Mann-
licher repeating rifles, we decided to equip ourselves with
these also, in the hope that they might prove useful as
sporting rifles; though, because of the size of the bullet,
we had little faith that they would prove successful.
All the bullets for the express rifles were hardened
with a certain proportion of tin, and we took with us
for use with the .577 express rifles 100 or more cartridges
having a steel core surrounded with soft lead.