Written by a relative describing a farewell dinner in 1878 prior to his departure for what is now Wyoming …..
“We sat late, and our mood was melting though fitfully hilarious. The host toasted my health and well-being, and professed extreme concern as to all those moral and physical dangers which loomed large on my far western horizon. Now he had, he said, a four bore muzzle-loading elephant rifle, carrying four bullets to the pound, would I not accept this as a farewell gift? - the hour was then about 2. a.m. He would feel, he assured me, much happier about me did he at all future times realise that this staunch and trusty weapon was in my hand. So his faithful servitor, Simpson, was sent for, and the elephant rifle was fetched from his quarters in Jermyn Street. The prodigious piece was handed around the room and duly admired; not a guest there but agreed that to confront a whole tribe of Commanches with so truculent a weapon would be almost unfair to the Indians – would indeed, we thought, be hardly sportsmanlike.
For my own part, I was actually maudlin when, the banquet over, the time had arrived to bid so many friends a fond farewell. The rifle, which was a full load for a coolie, I left at Queenstown on the following Sunday, consigned loosely to my friend Tom Hare, who lived adjacent. I never heard of it after."
One of the guns I would love to own!
K.
