I was given a copy of the book by Stokes on the Kruger Park, that he had written a note in to my grandmother in law, a close friend.

He captures beautifully the aspects of buffalo hunting. CS Stokes in Sanctuary, pg 148

He sniffed the tainted air awhile, and then the buffalo spoke,
For know ( he said), when I ‘m aroused I ‘m palpably no joke
And when a man hunts me, his sport ‘s the counterpart of tame,
For like as not my horns and hoofs will terminate his game.

A Nimrod bags a rhino, and an elephant, maybe then having downed King Leo,
Trains his rifle sights on me,
And he rakes me with his bullets, and he follows where I lead,
And my wounds trace, with my life-blood, his death- trail as they bleed.

Exultantly he tracks me, my spoor in scarlet writ
But I ‘m cunningly in hiding, or have doubled back a bit
For I ‘m become the hunter, and my vengeance is just as sheer,
Though my ambush ends in carnage, or I butcher from the rear.

Indeed, if an elephant, a lion, and a buffalo were to be ranged before a jury drawn from the brotherhood of the wilds, the great possibility is that the buffalo would be declared the most formidable of the trio from the hunter’s point of view. When incensed, its mania for revenge is such that only a duel to the death can end its frenzy. Fearless itself, but surely a fearful sight then to its strongest – nerved opponent, it charges; and in those ominous moments its speed comes near to equaling that of a racehorse out for laurels..

With its blood up, the beast, adamant in its purpose to destroy, is the very quintessence of courage. “As you sow, so shall you reap”. And he who goes sowing his bullets in the bovine monarch but be ready for a crop of trouble. No other animal is so set on retaliation, and only when its foe is down, and its horns and hoofs have performed ghastly work, will it be satisfied. When fired for flight, it demands of its adversary the steadiest aim, the surest eye, the stoutest nerve.

The buffalo …..

But when wounded or pursued it does not always charge its assailant. In wild – life vigilance and stratagem it has nothing to learn, and may elect to double back upon its aggressor and attack him, when he is all unsuspecting, from the rear. Again, when wounded, and when the hunter is on its blood trail, it may cunningly go into ambush at a point along the tracker’s path. “Can vengeance be pursued further than death”, Shakespeare asked. With the buffalo yes. That scores are settled is not enough for it; and although human life is extinct, it will not feel the debt discharged until it has trampled and ground the body into the earth. At such a time its Satanic aspect is eloquent of the Shakespearean lines, intentionally misquoted here:

“O, could he but have forty thousand lives,
One is too poor, to weak, for my revenge.”

And so on…