When We Came Within
A Few Yards Of It, We Found By The Precipitate Plunging Of The Reptile
That This Was A Large Alligator Itself.
Although I had been most careful
to approach near enough, I unfortunately only broke the hind leg of a zebra.
My two men pursued it, but the loss of a hind leg does not prevent this animal
from a gallop.
As I walked slowly after the men on an extensive plain
covered with a great crop of grass, which was `laid' by its own weight,
I observed that a solitary buffalo, disturbed by others of my own party,
was coming to me at a gallop. I glanced around, but the only tree
on the plain was a hundred yards off, and there was no escape elsewhere.
I therefore cocked my rifle, with the intention of giving him a steady shot
in the forehead when he should come within three or four yards of me.
The thought flashed across my mind, "What if your gun misses fire?"
I placed it to my shoulder as he came on at full speed,
and that is tremendous, though generally he is a lumbering-looking animal
in his paces. A small bush and bunch of grass fifteen yards off made him
swerve a little, and exposed his shoulder. I just heard the ball crack there
as I fell flat on my face. The pain must have made him
renounce his purpose, for he bounded close past me on to the water,
where he was found dead.
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