Old Rifles and Elephants

The photo shows me (left) and my late brother at Mount Darwin in about 1952. The rifles belonged to my late Uncle Power Jackson, then Native Commissioner, later Provincial Commissioner.

I am holding a 9.3 and my brother, who was two years older than me, has a .404. The 9.3 was used for everything up to elephant, the .404 only on elephant.

To this day I recall those guns, with which I hunted as a teenager, as ‘big guns’. Recently seeing the old photo I realised why. To be sure, when a rifle is as big as you are, it is a ‘big gun’.

If the impressions and lessons you learn as a youngster stay with you always, I can’t help wondering how much of today’s certainties became so at a very young age.

Sure, firearm safety has not changed, but a lot has. Once elephant were the most dangerous animal of all. Why? – Ivan Smith