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Binga was something of a letdown. It was the first ‘real town’ we passed through, and to be honest I wish we had bypassed. We were delayed there for an unreasonably lengthy period (due to various factors but mainly because of bungling bureaucracy), and I found the town to be a dive, as I find all Zimbabwean towns to be these days.

In certain respects, the lower Zambezi stretch was a letdown. Don’t get me wrong, we enjoyed fantastic moments and sightings and met some fine people along the way, but delays constantly shackled our advance and we jerked along spasmodically.

The basic design for a Dangerous Game Rifle (DGR) was finalized by English gun makers such as Holland and Holland, Rigby, Jeffrey, et al. before the start of WWI. Drawing on the experiences of big game hunters in their African colonies and using the new smokeless propellant, Cordite, these custom gun smiths could now build relatively light weight rifles that surpassed the stopping power of the earlier 4 to 10 gauge black powder rifles.

The farmer went by the name “Boats.” I never learned his family name and his Christian name kept me baffled, but that wasn’t important.