An extract from the book AFRICAN HUNTING AND ADVENTURE by Wiliiam Charles Baldwin, Esq., F.R.G.S. Third edition, published 1894 by Richard Bentley and Son
It seems guns and ammo problems were familiar to them on those days too.
"...Within three weeks from my landing we started - three waggons, seven white men, and lots of Kaffirs. The powder ordinance being very strict in those days, every waggon was searched, and none allowed to leave town or cross the Tugela with more than ten pounds of powder. So we each of us shouldered our weapon and carried ten pounds of powder on our backs, done up in a sort of knapsack fashion, till we crossed the Tugela, the boundary of the Colony, sevety miles distance, when we pitched all into the waggons.
He is talking of January 1852.
"...On the 7th, one of the party killed a sea-calf - very good food, tasting something like veal; and I lost myself buck shooting on the plains of the Inyesan, but eventually found my way back in the dark, guided by signal guns fired from the waggons, the plan we always adopted when any of our party were missing after sunset.
On the 12th, while treking leisurely along early, our whole party were put into a great flurry and excitement by seeing a large bull elephant cross some 400 yards ahead, quite unconcious of any danger. We were in so great a hurry unstrapping our guns from teh sides of the waggons, that all of us, except White, forgot to take our bandoliers and more bullets. Four of us went on foor after the elephant as hard as we could run. As he was going upwind in the open, he did not hear us until we were twenty yards, when White shouted, and he immediately turned half round; snap went White's gun; Arbuthnot and myself shot him behind the shoulder, and Ellis also, with a little twaddling weapon fifty to the pound. White meantime capped again, and, just as the elephant appeared hesitating whether to charge or not, gave him a good shot in the middle of the shoulder blade. With a terrific scream turned and went off at a great pace, evidently crippled by the last shot.
Eventually, Ellis, myself and Fly brought him to bay in some reeds three miles on, and teh former, takign advantage of a commanding rock, on top of which we were comparatively safe, gave no less than nineteen bullets out of his pea-shooter (most of which we afterwards extracted from the elephant's ear) ere White, whose wind was long since exhausted, at length, got up and settled him with the fourth ball..."
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