How I Found Livingstone Travels, Adventures And Discoveries In Central Africa Including Four Months Residence With Dr. Livingstone By Sir Henry M. Stanley
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12 bore, with barrels at least four feet in length.
For the rifle for larger game, I would point
Out, with due deference
to old sportsmen, of course, that the best guns for African game
are the English Lancaster and Reilly rifles; and for a fighting
weapon, I maintain that the best yet invented is the American
Winchester repeating rifle, or the "sixteen, shooter" as it is
called, supplied with the London Eley's ammunition. If I suggest
as a fighting weapon the American Winchester, I do not mean that
the traveller need take it for the purpose of offence, but as
the beat means of efficient defence, to save his own life against
African banditti, when attacked, a thing likely to happen any time.
I met a young man soon after returning from the interior, who
declared his conviction that the "Express," rifle was the most
perfect weapon ever invented to destroy African game. Very
possibly the young man may be right, and that the "Express "
rifle is all he declares it to be, but he had never practised with
it against African game, and as I had never tried it, I could not
combat his assertion: but I could relate my experiences with weapons,
having all the penetrating powers of the "Express," and could
inform him that though the bullets penetrated through the animals,
they almost always failed to bring down the game at the first fire.
On the other hand, I could inform him, that during the time I
travelled with Dr. Livingstone the Doctor lent me his heavy Reilly
rifle with which I seldom failed to bring an animal or two home
to the camp, and that I found the Fraser shell answer all purposes
for which it was intended.
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