Читать книгу Anecdotes of Big Cats and Other Beasts - David Alec Wilson - Страница 17

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On the last day of 1908, in a morning walk at Myaungmya, Lower Burma, I met two acquaintances, Messrs Dunn and M‘Kenzie, riding home. They had elected to enjoy their Christmas holidays a-hunting, and been away for several days.

“Hunting what?”

“Buffalo.”

“I believe the buffalo is a dangerous beast to tackle.”

They looked at each other in a way that showed they had an adventure to tell. They had gone with another European and a crowd of followers to a muddy island in the delta, where a wild bull buffalo lived. They had failed to find him, and were all walking carelessly away, when he accidentally [88] met them. The sight of a mob where he had lived alone, like Robinson Crusoe, startled the old bull, and he charged. Then magistrates, policemen and followers stampeded in many directions. With the instinct inherited from our forgotten arboreal ancestors, the fugitives sought refuge in the trees; but the trees were too small to lift them above the reach of the horns, and one or more would have been killed if Mr. Dunn had not stumbled and fallen in the mud. This stopped the buffalo, which tried to pick him up, but could not do it, as he had the sense to lie flat. So it passed on; and Dunn then crawled to where his servant had dropped his gun, and recovered it, and shot the buffalo.