If we could ascertain the most fatal spot in an animal, we could dispatch it with the least possible amount of suffering; but as that is probably the part to which the greatest amount of nervous influence is directed at the moment of receiving the shot, if we can not be sure of the heart or brain, we are never certain of speedy death. Antelopes, formed for a partially amphibious existence, and other animals of that class, are much more tenacious of life than those which are purely terrestrial. Most antelopes, when in distress or pursued, make for the water. If hunted, they always do. A leche shot right through the body, and no limb-bone broken, is almost sure to get away, while a zebra, with a wound of no greater severity, will probably drop down dead. I have seen a rhinoceros, while standing apparently chewing the cud, drop down dead from a shot in the stomach, while others shot through one lung and the stomach go off as if little hurt. But if one should crawl up silently to within twenty yards either of the white or black rhinoceros, throwing up a pinch of dust every now and then, to find out that the anxiety to keep the body concealed by the bushes has not led him to the windward side, then sit down, rest the elbow on the knees, and aim, slanting a little upward, at a dark spot behind the shoulders, it falls stone dead.
To show that a shock on the part of the system to which much nervous force is at the time directed will destroy life, it may be mentioned that an eland, when hunted, can be dispatched by a wound which does little more than injure the muscular system; its whole nervous force is then imbuing the organs of motion; and a giraffe, when pressed hard by a good horse only two or three hundred yards, has been known to drop down dead, without any wound being inflicted at all. A full gallop by an eland or giraffe quite dissipates its power, and the hunters, aware of this, always try to press them at once to it, knowing that they have but a short space to run before the animals are in their power. In doing this, the old sportsmen are careful not to go too close to the giraffe's tail, for this animal can swing his hind foot round in a way which would leave little to choose between a kick with it and a clap from the arm of a windmill.
When the nervous force is entire, terrible wounds may be inflicted without killing; a tsessebe having been shot through the neck while quietly feeding, we went to him, and one of the men cut his throat deep enough to bleed him largely. He started up after this and ran more than a mile, and would have got clear off had not a dog brought him to bay under a tree, where we found him standing.
My men, having never had fire-arms in their hands before, found it so difficult to hold the musket steady at the flash of fire in the pan, that they naturally expected me to furnish them with "gun medicine", without which, it is almost universally believed, no one can shoot straight. Great expectations had been formed when I arrived among the Makololo on this subject; but, having invariably declined to deceive them, as some for their own profit have done, my men now supposed that I would at last consent, and thereby relieve myself from the hard work of hunting by employing them after due medication. This I was most willing to do, if I could have done it honestly; for, having but little of the hunting 'furore' in my composition, I always preferred eating the game to killing it. Sulphur is the remedy most admired, and I remember Sechele giving a large price for a very small bit. He also gave some elephants' tusks, worth 30 Pounds, for another medicine which was to make him invulnerable to musket balls. As I uniformly recommended that these things should be tested by experiment, a calf was anointed with the charm and tied to a tree. It proved decisive, and Sechele remarked it was "pleasanter to be deceived than undeceived." I offered sulphur for the same purpose, but that was declined, even though a person came to the town afterward and rubbed his hands with a little before a successful trial of shooting at a mark.