Selous 1881.....

by RayLee, Friday, August 30, 2024, 17:31 (17 days ago) @ JohnKDM

We were most kindly treated by Mr. William Williams, a trader, who had only the preceding year returned from a hunting and trading trip in the Matabele country. He gave me much information about Matabele Land, and showed me the largebore elephant guns which are universally used by the professional Dutch and native elephant-hunters. I eventually bought two of these very unprepossessing-looking weapons, which I will here describe. They were smooth-bore duck guns of the very commonest description, taking a round bullet of four ounces, the guns themselves weighing only 12 ½ lbs. They were made by Isaac Hollis of Birmingham, and what they must have cost originally I am afraid to say, for I bought them from Mr. Williams after they had been transported by bullock waggons over 600 miles up country from Cape Town for £6 apiece. With these two guns, and another similar but weighing 2 lbs. heavier, which I bought the following year from a Dutch hunter for £7:10s., and using nothing but the common trade powder that is sold to the Kafirs in 5 lb. bags, I killed in three seasons seventy-eight elephants, all but one of which I shot on foot.

Since then I have shot with very expensive large-bore breech-loaders and Curtis and Harvey's best powder, but I have never used or seen used a rifle which drove better than these common-made old muzzle-loaders. However, they were so light that, when loaded as they were by the hand from a leather bag of powder slung at my side (I find that an ordinary handful of powder is over twenty drachms), they kicked most frightfully, and in my case the punishment I received from these guns has affected my nerves to such an extent as to have materially influenced my shooting ever since, and I am heartily sorry that I ever had anything to do with them.