Seizing my second gun from the hands of Balamoya - for the first time since it had snapped the cap at the commencement of the hunt - I threaded my way through the jungle so as to intercept him; and as he was badly wounded and had settled into a slow walk, I easily succeeded, and running a little ahead, let him pass me broadside on within thirty yards. Taking a good sight for the middle of his shoulder, I pulled the trigger. This time the gun went off -- it was a four-bore elephant gun, loaded twice over, and the powder thrown in each time by a Kafir with his hands -- and I went off too! I was lifted clean from the ground, and turning round in the air, fell with my face in the sand, whilst the gun was carried yards away over my shoulder. At first I was almost stunned with shock, and I soon found that I could not lift my right arm. Besides this, I was covered with blood, which spurted from a deep wound under the right cheek-bone, caused by the stock of the gun as it flew upwards from the violence of the recoil. The stock itself -- though it had been bound round, as all elephant guns, with the inside skin of an elephant's ear put on green, which when dry holds it as firmly as iron -- was shattered to pieces, and only wonder was that the barrel did not burst. Whether the two bullets hit the elephant or not I cannot say; but I think they must have done so, for he only went a few yards after I fired and stood still, raising his trunk every now and then, and dashing water tinged with blood over his chest. I went cautiously up to within forty yards or so of him, and sat down. Though I could not hold my arm out, I could raise my forearm so as to get hold of the trigger; but the shock had so told on me, that I found I could not keep the sight within a yard of the right place.

From 'A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa' F.C. Selous