A Buffalo May Retreat At First Sight With
Every Symptom Of Cowardice, And Thus Induce A Too Eager Pursuit, When He
Will Suddenly Become The Assailant.
I cannot explain their character
better than by describing the, first wild buffaloes that I ever saw.
I had not been long in Ceylon, but having arrived in the island for the
sake of its wild sports, I had not been idle, and I had already made a
considerable bag of large game. Like most novices, however, I was guilty
of one great fault. I despised the game, and gave no heed to the many
tales of danger and hair-breadth escapes which attended the pursuit of
wild animals. This carelessness on my part arose from my first debut
having been extremely lucky; most shots had told well, and the animal
had been killed with such apparent ease that I had learnt to place an
implicit reliance in the rifle. The real fact was that I was like many
others; I had slaughtered a number of animals without understanding
their habits, and I was perfectly ignorant of the sport. This is now
many years ago, and it was then my first visit to the island. Some
places that were good spots for shooting in those days have since that
time been much disturbed, and are now no longer attractive to my eyes.
One of these places is Minneria Lake.
I was on a shooting trip accompanied by my brother, whom I will
designate as B. We had passed a toilsome day in pushing and dragging our
ponies for twenty miles along a narrow path through thick jungle, which
half-a-dozen natives in advance were opening before us with bill-hooks.
This had at one time been a good path, but was then overgrown.
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