quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Ladies and Gentlemen,

As many of you already know, we are leaving early Tuesday morning to hunt with our friends the Vincents.

We will be hunting in Mahenge North, in Tanzania.

Buffalo, of course, are our prime objective, and I am hoping that we can give you daily reports from the hunting camp.

In the meantime, I thought you might enjoy these few lines from famous hunter about the buffalo.

JOHN BURGER: HORNED DEATH

"I am, however, convinced that many more experienced hunters have been killed by buffaloes than lions. My own view is that given the choice, I would very much sooner shoot it out with an enraged lion than an enraged buffalo. In the matter of speed the lion has the advantage, but in natural cunning, resistance and tenaciousness of life, the buffalo has it all his own way.
My own contention is that deep down in the makeup of every adult lion there runs a broad yellow streak. One has but to dig deep enough in order to find it. Frequently, when the going really gets tough, the lion will seek safety in flight. He is a believer in the adage that discretion is the better part of valor. This cannot be said of the buffalo, who, to my mind, is the most courageous of animals, and once his animosity has been aroused sufficiently to provoke a charge, no odds are too great for him. In such cases he gives, and asks for, no quarter, but will fight iy out silently and courageously to the bitter end."

ROBERT RUARK: HORN OF THE HUNTER

"I am bitterly afraid of buffalo, the big, rope muscled wild ox with horns like steel girders and a disposition to curdle milk. Lions leopards and rhinos excite me but don't frighten me. But that buff is so big and mean and ugly and hard to stop, and vindictive and cruel and surly and ornery. He looks like he hates you personally. He looks like you own him money. He makes me sick in the stomach, and he makes my hands sweat, and he dries out my throat and lips. You may kill him easily with one bullet, but if you don't, the next fourteen .470s serve mostly as a minor irritant. And you cannot run away from a wounded buffalo. You have to stand and take him as he is. But the reason my friend mbogo is generally rated as the toughest piece of all the African furniture is that he is a single minded type. You got to kill him to discourage him."

PETER CAPSTICK: SAFARI: THE LAST ADVENTURE

" That the African buffalo is one of the toughest big game animals on earth would not be disputed with much vehemence by the majority of people who have hunted him. Up to two thousand pounds of five-o'clock-shadowed muscle with the temprament of a hung-over linebacker...you'd have to go back to the age of dinosaurs to find an animal so resistant to dying and, if necessary, so dedicated to taking you along with him. I have many times had cases with clients where ten or more doses of persuasion were required, and these from guns as heavy as the .455 and the .460.
Every buffalo is a potential wave of distruction, particularly if you put an off-center hole in him. Once he puts a close-quarter charge into gear, your options have been wonderfully simplified: you kill him or he will kill you."