We travelled very slowly towards Mabotsé, Livingstone’s station, and on our arrival there received every kindness and attention from him and Mrs. Livingstone, guides to the country to the north, with advice as to route, &c. Livingstone had not long got over his lion mishap—get over it altogether, indeed, he never did—the overlapping end of the broken humerus was visible enough when the body was brought home. The story of the accident was fresh with him and the Kafirs when we reached Mabotsé. A lion had killed an ox near the village, and the Ba-Katla turned out, as they always did when the lion deserted his game, and attacked their herds. Each man, as is usual in a hunt of this kind, carried two or three assegais and a plume of ostrich feathers on a pointed six-foot stick. The lion was tracked to his sleeping place, and the men made a ring round it, gradually closing the space between man and man as they advanced. Presently the quarry was roused and sat up, and then a spearman, taking a few steps in advance, threw his assegai. The thrower is generally charged, but the animal’s attention is immediately taken off by a second spearman and second assegai, and so on until, poor beast, it is killed. Accidents seldom occur in fairly open ground, as the men support one another very coolly and effectively. In rocky places the sport is dangerous; sometimes, however, even in favourable spots, the man is pressed closely by the beast, and he then as he runs plants the stick with the plume firmly in the ground and dodges away from it; the lion, half-blinded by rage, sees something before him, and springs at the ostrich feathers, giving the man a chance of escape. In Livingstone’s case they had lost the lion after wounding it, and were looking for it; the dear old Doctor caught sight of its tail switching backwards and forwards. Up and off went a gun that wouldhardly have killed a strong tomtit. Livingstone was spun over eight or ten feet, and the lion was standing over him. The brute took his arm in its mouth and put a heavy paw on the nape of his neck, from which he pushed it off, for, as he said, ‘It was so heavy, man, and I don’t like to be stamped on’—neither did he! The lion was then driven off and killed. Livingstone was so quiet and imperturbable that he would have made a capital sportsman, but he could neither shoot nor ride (except on oxback)—this was not his business. I am afraid he despised therôleof a sportsman, and no doubt believed, as he has stated, that the Kafirs looked upon us as weaklings to be used for providing them food. Perhaps he was right; but I think he overlooked that we, with no knowledge of the language, would have found it very difficult to make our way, if we had only come to see the country, without shooting. He could talk to the Kafirs’ ears and hearts, we only to their stomachs; and I would fain believe that his grand work was occasionally made a little smoother by the guns.
An incident highly creditable to Kafir womanhood occurred just as we reached Mabotsé. The women, as is their custom, were working in the fields—for they hoe, and the men sew—and a young man, standing by the edge of the bush, was chatting with them. A lioness sprang on him and was carrying him off, when one of the women ran after her, and, catching her by the tail, was dragged for some little distance. Hampered with the man in her mouth and the woman behind her, she slackened her pace, whereupon her assailant straddled over her back and hit her across the nose and head with a heavy short-handled hoe till she dropped her prey and slunk into cover. This man was her husband! Would Mrs. Smith do as much for Mr. Smith? Could she do more?
We pushed on from Livingstone’s station and hunted through the country of the Ba-Katla, the people amongst whom he was living. It was then full of game, and put me in mind of the children’s pictures of Adam naming the beasts in the Garden of Eden—more animals than bushes. The firstgiraffes fell here, Murray again scoring, and killing No. 1. We seldom shot these beautiful-eyed, gentle-looking creatures—only a cow as a dainty now and then, for the flesh of the female is the most excellent eating, a kind of venisony beef. They were to be seen nearly every day in herds of from five to thirty. Shooting them on foot was a difficult matter, their great height giving them an extended view. I never stalked but two—a delicate head peering over a mimosa-tree nearly always detecting the coming danger before I could get within reasonable distance with my smooth-bore. There is no difficulty in riding them down (as we had, of course, sometimes to do for the men when other game was scarce) provided you are a light weight and a fair rider, for a horse requires more driving up to this animal than to any other. The towering height and the ungainly sawing motion appear to terrify him; and to these must, I think, be added the scent. Horses have very sensitive noses, and try to avoid giraffes, as in India they do camels. A good-couraged beast soon conquers his fears, but I have had regular fights with faint-hearted ones. Get as good a start as possible, press your game as much as you can for 300 or 400 yards—for press them you must, or you may ride after their tails all day—and you are alongside; a shot in the gallop with the gun across the pommel brings the poor thing to the ground, and you are ashamed of yourself if it has been done wantonly. Eland hunting, from horseback, may be classed with giraffe, as very tame after the novelty is over.
I would utter two words of warning with regard to hunting the giraffe. Do not ride close behind him, for in his panic he sometimes lashes out most vigorously—I have had his heels whiz very ominously within a few inches of my head; and my friend Vardon, in pistolling one that was standing wounded, only just missed what might have been serious injury from a vicious stamp of the forefoot—and be careful after you have fired to slacken speed at once, or pull your horse to the right, lest your victim fall on you.
I have measured bulls quite 18 feet—6 feet of leg, 6 feet ofbody, 6 feet of neck. For their peculiarity of shape, shared by other African animals, there must be a reason. Now we can understand that ‘a deer with a neck that was longer by half than the rest of his family—try not to laugh—by stretching and stretching became a giraffe,’ to the detriment of his hind-quarters. But what about the sasaybye, hartebeest, and elephant—why are they so low behind? The lion, too, is weak-quartered in comparison with his forehand, and even the hyæna has thought it necessary to follow the fashion. The animals of South Africa, indeed, are a queer lot—all countries have their specialities, but Africa is all speciality—distinct are the giraffes, the gnus, the hippos; adaptedplus æquoare the elephants, rhinoceroses and antelopes.
Buffaloes were abundant, the bravest and most determined of all animals when wounded and at bay; courage is the instinct of the buffalo family. Look at the wild cousin in India, who will charge home upon a line of elephants, and even at his tame relations in the same country. In Collegal, an outlying talook of the district of Coimbatoor, in the Madras Presidency, I have seen the village buffaloes drive a full-grown tiger helter-skelter up the hills, pursuing him far beyond their feeding grounds. Again, I have known a misguided tiger spring into the midst of a herd penned up for the night; he was stamped and gored to death, and when taken out from amongst the half-maddened beasts in the morning he was a pulp. TheBubalus cafferis a stirring fellow when his blood is up; you may shoot a dozen on a flat or in open ground, taking your own distance for dismounting and shooting, and think them oxen; but wound one in thickish bush and follow him, and if alive he’ll let you know it! The Kafirs will hunt a blood spoor of elephant, lion, rhinoceros, or any other animal right ahead of you like hounds; but put them upon wounded buffalo tracks, they willfollowyou at a respectful distance; they know the ways of him and his character. Wounded in bush he runs straight on for some little distance, then turns back and takes a line close to and parallel with hisup-tracks, lying down or concealing himself behind a patch of cover. With his eyes on the ground the sportsman is picking out the trail, when a hard grunting bellow to right or left makes him look up, and he had better beware and hold straight now if ever, for down comes the wounded bull, and nothing but death or a disabling shot will stop him. I have seen one with entirely paralysed hind-quarters attempt to carry out his rush to the bitter end by dragging himself along with his forefeet. His pluck is splendid; no single lion will face him, though, attacked by stealth or numbers, he occasionally falls a prey. Once I went out in one direction and Murray in another to shoot elands for fat to make candles—we carried wicks and tin moulds amongst our stores. I turned homewards early to throw off my load, and within a mile or two of the waggons put up six lions on a flat surrounded by bush; in riding after them for a shot I drove up a couple more, so I had a ‘flock’ of eight before me. Pressing them, the hindmost, a fine black-maned fellow, who seemed willing to sacrifice himself for his friends and relations, turned on me, thus giving the others time to continue their retreat. Twice I dismounted to shoot him, but before I could get the chance I wanted, I was obliged to remount, for the whole of his companions, seeing their rearguard cut off and in difficulties, bore down upon me. One was all very well, but I felt I was not the man for the eight; they were not very far from bush when I first saw them, and before I could get upon anything I thought equal terms they reached cover without a shot.
I found Murray already in camp. He had come upon an ostrich’s nest, and making his after-rider take off his trousers and tie up the bottoms, he had carefully packed the eggs in them, put them across a horse, and, with heart set on omelet, had returned to the cookery pots. Unfortunately, he had not broken an egg, but taken them in faith, and they all contained young birds, which the Kafirs were joyfully stirring round in our big baking-pot preparatory to a feast when I appeared on the scene. My readers may naturally say, ‘What has elandfat and ostrich eggs to do with the courage of buffaloes?’ Well, these are just the incidents of daily camp life, which have brought up another recollection illustrative of my point.
Death of Superior
Death of Superior
That night, half a mile from the waggons, from dark to dawn a fight was going on. The air rang again and again with the short snapping bark of attacking lions and the grunting snorts of buffaloes on the defensive; and, as soon as it was day, we went to the field of battle. None of the combatants were to be seen, but the whole story was clearly told by the trampled ground. A herd of 40 or 50 buffaloes had evidently been attacked by a number of lions—the Kafirs said nine, from the spoor—but the ground was so torn and trampled I could not pretend to count. They had taken up a position in front of a very dense patch of thorns, on a curve, and shifted backwards and forwards as their flanks were threatened; the bulls and cows had come to the front, the calves had been placed in the rear, and they had held their own throughout the night without the loss of a single calf! The lions I hadseen in the afternoon were probably the baffled marauders.
We had been unsuccessful up to this time in killing buffaloes handsomely. More than half those hit got away—chiefly, I think, from our not having as yet adopted the squatting position; but this may be a fad of mine, and our bad shooting have been the cause. Two days after leaving the camping ground I have just spoken of, whilst the waggons were moving slowly through the low bush, three bulls crossed the line of march. I was on my horse, Superior, and, with a shout to Murray that I intended to make sure of a bag this time, galloped after them, and singling out one, got alongside of him within five feet and fired. He pitched upon his head and lay perfectly still. Making sure he was dead, I would not give him the second barrel, and turned the horse to ride after the two others which were still in view; but, before I could get my animal into his stride, the wounded beast sprang up and struck him heavily. I felt the thud, but the horse did not fall, and cantered on for twenty yards, when the whisk of his tail dabbled my trousers with blood, and, on getting off, I found a hole thirty inches deep, and nearly wide enough to get into, in his flank, for the horn had been driven up to the base. The bull was too weak to follow up the attack, and died where he stood; the horse crawled on for a few yards, and then, seeing it was a hopeless case, I put a ball through his head.
This lesson early in shooting experiences made me cautious in buffalo-hunting throughout the whole of my time, though I have had a narrow escape or two. Coming homewards one afternoon, we stumbled into the middle of a herd asleep in the long grass. Our sudden appearance startled them from their dreams, a panic seized them, and away they galloped in the wildest confusion. One old patriarch had been taking his siesta apart from the rest, in a dense patch of bush to the right: the sound of the gun and the rush of his companions roused him, and with one barrel loaded, as I ran after his relations, I found myself face to face with him, within ten yards. He was evidently bent on mischief. We stared at one another for a second. I fired at his broad chest; it was the best I could do, for his nose was up, and the points of his shoulders were not exposed. He plunged at me instantly. I fortunately caught a projecting bough of the mimosa-tree under which I was standing, and, drawing my knees up to my chin, he passed below me. I have heard of people avoiding a charge by quickly stepping on one side, but the ground must have been in their favour, and they must have been very cool, and only resorted to this instinctively, I think, as a last resource. A buffalo, it is true, drops his head very low, but only just before he closes, and he can strike desperately right and left from the straight line, so you ought to secure four or five feet side room. I have never been obliged to try this lateral movement, and fear I should have made a mess of it, though I know it is possible; for I once travelled down the west coast of South America with a bull-fighting man and woman, and they explained to me how, when the ‘toro’ charged, they stepped aside and stuck the banderillos into his neck; but they had no bush or smoke to contend with. I have often, however, had to dodge animals round a tree, and once escaped from a borili by catching a bough, as in this instance.
On our first journey to Lake ’Ngami, when within a hundred miles, the oxen wearied, so we selected twelve of the freshest and started with my waggon only, and some of the men, leaving the rest to encamp themselves and await our return. During our absence the drivers had to supply the party with meat. One of them wounded a buffalo, which immediately charged. The man, dropping his musket, climbed a tree just in time. For four hours the buffalo watched that tree, walking round and lying down under it. How Piet got toterra firmaagain I do not remember. Probably the animal grew tired of waiting, though they are generally very patient, and willing to bide their time for retaliation. The following short story illustrates the vengeful nature of the beast; it is told, I think, in Moffat’s ‘Missionary Travels,’ but I have not the book by me,and cannot vouch for the exact words: A native, sitting by the water at night, wounded a buffalo, but not mortally. It made for the shooter, who ran and lay down under a projecting rock. Unable to get its horns to bear, but not to be baulked, with its long, rough tongue it licked off the flesh of the exposed part of the man’s thigh down to the bone, and then left its victim, who died early in the morning.
The smell of blood seems to madden these beasts; they will turn on a wounded and bleeding companion and gore him most savagely. As I write recollections come back of scenes that had left no vivid pictures in my mind, because nothing untoward happened; but why not, and how not, now one thinks of it, is wonderful. Stalking an antelope, or I know not what, I found myself in an immense herd of buffaloes. The bush was full of them, I was surrounded, and had nothing to do but stand still. They dashed about me like rooks after the wireworms in a newly ploughed field. I had the sensation of drawing myself in very tightly about the waistband. Till they thinned out into a tail I could not begin to shoot, but there were such numbers that even then I knocked over six at exceedingly close quarters. The danger was, being run over or butted down in the headlong stampede. The same thing has happened to me, and, I dare say, to many all-round shots, with elephants. How they avoided or missed you—for they didn’t seem to try to avoid—you can’t tell. You come out of it without a scratch, and therefore, as a rule, think no more of it.
If I were to write our daily life and shooting, it would be weary reading. In a few chapters of this kind, all I can do is to take my readers into some of my scrapes, and let them fill in the blanks; but perhaps, once for all, I may put the abundance of the game in those days in some way intelligibly before them, if I say that in most parts, with horses, one gun could easily have kept 800 men—600 we tried—fattened, and supplied with a store sufficient to last for months. Fortunately, in consequence of the excessive dryness of the climate, meat, cut into long thin strips and hung over the bushes to dry in the sun, will keep quite good for a long time. It needs soaking before cooking, and loses much of its flavour, but it holds body and soul together.
Leaving the valley and rocky hills of the Ba-Katla, we moved slowly onwards towards the Ba-Wangketsi; before reaching them, an event occurred which coloured my whole African life, and will colour my life as long as I live. It is no story of big game, and perhaps ought not to find a place in these pages; but it is so bound up with all my shooting, all my pleasure in Africa, that I would ask to be forgiven for telling it. I should feel a traitor to the memory of a dead friend if I did not.
We were trekking through some low sand-hills covered with scrub, when three lions crossed about fifty yards ahead of the oxen. Snatching up a gun, I jumped from the waggon, calling upon someone to follow me with a heavy rifle which was always kept loaded as a reserve battery. I pressed so closely on the leisurely retreating trio that the largest stopped short. I squatted, intending to take his shoulder as he turned, looked round for my second gun, and heard the bearer, who was close to me, whisper in Dutch, ‘You can get nearer by the ant-hill.’ The move lost me the lion, as he broke away after his companions; and then for the first time I took notice of the cool, tall, handsome lad who had offered me advice, and recognised in him at once the stuff to make a henchman of. From that day forth he was my right-hand man in the field, and never failed me.
John Thomas was an Africander, born at the Cape, of parents probably slaves; but as a grand specimen of manhood, good nature, faithfulness, and cheerful endurance, I never met his equal, white or black. Plucky to a fault, he was the least quarrelsome of men, the life and light of our camp fires, and the pet of the Kafirs, who seemed at once to understand his quiet unpretending nature, and always made their requests to me through ‘bono Johnny.’ To tell his gooddeeds through a five years’ wandering would very often be to show up my own faults; let it be enough to say that he was a perfect servant to a very imperfect master, who, now that his friend is dead, feels that he did not value him half enough, though he never loved man better. His worth, to those who know the troubles and difficulties of African travelling, may be outlined by the following little story.
When Livingstone and I made our journey in search of Lake ’Ngami, we held out to our followers that if we were successful we would not attempt to press on further. They were, as a rule, a timid folk, dreading the unknown, too ready to listen to any tale of danger and difficulty that might be in the world beyond, and always eager to turn colony-wards. After some hard work we reached the lake, and success bred in us the wish to do more; but we were bound to stand to our agreement. At last the desire of penetrating deeper into the land became so strong that I suggested calling a meeting of the servants and trying what our eloquence might effect. After putting before them that we fully recognised our promise of not constraining them to go with us any further, I told them that the Doctor and I had made up our minds to give them one of the waggons with sufficient stores, supplies and ammunition for their homeward journey, while we ourselves had decided to push on ahead. I further explained to them that they would have no difficulty in reaching the colony, as they knew the waters, and had the wheel-tracks. I paused for a minute, and then added, that though we could not ask them to accompany us, yet that if any one of them was willing to do so, we should be very glad. I rather enlarged upon our ignorance of the country in advance, for we did not wish to influence them unduly to join us. For a few moments there was silence, and blankness of face; then out stepped John, and speaking in Dutch, as he always did when his feelings were touched, though he at other times spoke English perfectly, said: ‘What you eat I can eat, where you sleep I can sleep, where you go I willgo; I will come with you.’ The effect was instantaneous. ‘We will all go!’ was the cry. Do you think after that it was much matter to us whether our brother was black or white?
Time wore on. I was obliged to return to England. John accompanied me to the Cape. I told him, in part, how I valued his services, and asked him if I could in any way repay my debt of gratitude. I had taught him to read, in the bush, but that was the only good I had ever done him. His answer came, after some hesitation. He had heard so much of England that he should like, of all things, to go with me there. Two days later we were on board ship together. He, as usual, was everything to everybody—helping the steward, attending the sick ladies, nursing the babies; the idol of the sailors, to whom he told stories of bush life, the adored of the nurses. John, with all his virtues, was a flirt—the admirer and admired of all womankind. On arriving in England, I left him in London and went down to my brother’s. He hesitated about my henchman, thinking a real live black man would hardly suit the household of a country clergyman. But his coachman fell sick. Could John drive? I should think so. He was the best eight-in-hander in Cape Town. Down he came, and in half an hour he was perfectly established in the family. My brother declared he never had such a coachman, and was very kind to him, timidly at first. The cook taught him writing; the lady’s-maid went on with his reading. I shall not forget meeting him with the two women, one on either arm, chatting with them in the most accomplished style. His stay in England was limited to six months, as we had agreed, and he went back to the Cape with a friend of mine, who wrote most highly of him.
Two years passed away; I was a wanderer again; and at the beginning of the Crimean War found myself carrying secret-service money to Colonel, now Field Marshal, Sir Lintorn Simmons, political agent at Shumla. On my return to the coast I fell in with a cavalry regiment and the 60th Rifles encamped near Devna, a few miles from Varna. A sergeant of the latter regiment saluted as I passed, and asked for news from the front. Silistria was then besieged. I turned myself half round to the right on my saddle to talk with him, and presently felt a hand placed verygently,lovingly, on my left foot. John stood by my stirrup, his face a picture of affectionate triumph at having caught me again. He had taken service with an officer of the 60th. We threw ourselves down under a bush and renewed old memories. The Major, near whose tent we were, called John, and, finding from him who I was, most courteously entreated me, telling me how beloved John was by the regiment, and how well, through him, they knew my name. I had letters to deliver at Constantinople, and went on. John, I believe, sickened, and was invalided to England; but for two or three years I heard no more of him, for I was away in South America and elsewhere. Shortly after my return home a letter came to me, asking if I could recommend a black man named ‘John Thomas’ as a butler! He had referred the writer to me. I was obliged to say I knew nothing of his capabilities in this line, but added that, as a staunch ally in a fight with an elephant and an absolutely trustworthy man in all the relations of life (save that of a butler, in which I had not tried him), I could most highly recommend him. My friend engaged him, and had an excellent servant, for such was John’s power of adapting himself to circumstances that nothing ever came amiss to him. But the dark day was coming on; and, in the midst of his affectionate service, beloved from the head of the house to the youngest child, trusted and never found wanting, always ready and always willing, this fine, noble fellow died. I heard of his sickness too late to see him alive on earth, but I trust that master and man may hereafter meet as brothers in Heaven.
We had been shooting in this Ba-Wangketsi country for a fortnight, and the work had been very hard. One morning after breakfast, my companion, who was busy cleaning the head of a koodoo, said he would have a day of rest, andfinish what he was about. His laziness was catching. I ordered my horses to be unsaddled, and was idling about the camp when our head man told me there was no food for the twelve or fourteen dogs, our night watchmen; so I took up my gun, which was only loaded in one barrel, and strolled out on the chance of a shot; but as, kill or miss, I intended to return immediately, I did not carry any spare ammunition. A reedy pond lay close in advance of the waggons in a little opening; beyond this, as on every other side, stretched a sea of bush and mimosa-trees. Two hundred yards from the outspan I came upon a clump of quagga and wounded one, which though mortally hit struggled on before falling. I followed, and marking the place where it fell, set my face as I thought towards the waggons, meaning to send out men for the flesh. No doubt of the direction crossed my mind—the pool was certainly not more that 400 yards in a straight line, and I thought I could walk down upon it without any trouble; so taking no notice of my out tracks, which had bent slightly in following the quagga, I started. It was now about 10a.m.; little did I think that 5p.m.would still find me seeking three vans nearly as large as Pickford’s, and half an acre of water.
In my first cast I cannot say whether I got wide or stopped short of the mark I was making for, and it was not until I had wandered about carelessly hither and thither for half an hour, feeling sure that it was only the one particular bush in front of me which hid the waggons, that I very unwillingly owned to myself that I was drifting without bearings in this bushy sea. The sun was nearly overhead, and gave but slight help as to direction, and the constant turning to avoid thick patches of thorns rendered it nearly impossible, in the absence of any guiding point, to hold a fixed course through this maze of sameness.
I tried walking in circles in the hopes of cutting the wheel tracks, but though on a previous occasion this plan had succeeded, it now failed. As with empty gun I plodded on, occasional small herds of rooyebuck and blue wildebeest, evidently very much at home, swept and capered by me, and,stopping and looking at me with wondering eyes, increased my feeling of loneliness. I had no doubts of regaining my party next day at latest, and cared but little for passing a night in the jungle; but, bewildered and baffled, I envied the instinct of the so-called brutes, which, careless of their steps, were nevertheless quite sure of their ways. Twilight near the tropics is very short. Just before the sun set, therefore, I followed a game track which I knew would lead to water, as it was still early in the season, and the rain supply had not yet dried up in the hollows. At dusk I reached a pool similar to the one I had quitted in the morning. After a good draught I began collecting firewood, but for once it was very scarce, and the night closed in so rapidly, that a bare hour’s supply was all my store. Partly to save fuel, and partly in the hope that as the night crept on signals would be made from the waggons, I climbed a tree which stood by the side of the water, and had not been long perched before I heard, though so far off that I could hardly catch the sound, the smothered boom of guns. Alarmed at my absence my companions suspected the cause, and were inviting my return: but it required a very pressing invitation indeed to induce a man to walk through two miles of an African wood in those days on a dark night.
This particular spot, too, was more infested with lions than any other, save one, I was ever in; and, though harmless and cowardly enough as a rule in the day, they were not likely to prove very acceptable followers at night. But I had been walking all day under a tropical sun, my clothing was wet with perspiration, and it now froze hard—for freeze it can in Southern Africa—and I was bitterly cold. I determined to come down and light my fire. I knew it would last but a short time, but thought I would make the best of it, and thaw myself before attempting to return. I got to the lowest bough of my tree, and had placed my hand beside my feet before jumping off, when from the bush immediately under me a deep note, and the sound of a heavy body slipping through the thorny scrub, told me that a lion was passing. Whetherthe creaking of the tree had roused his attention and caused him to speak so opportunely I don’t know, but without the warning, in another half-second I should have alighted on his back. I very quickly put two or three yards more between the soles of my feet and the ground. Presently, from the upper end of the pool came the moaning pant of a questing lion; it was immediately answered from the lower end—their majesties were on the look-out for supper, and had divided the approaches to the water between them. It was much too dark to see anything, but from the sounds they seemed to walk in beats, occasionally telling one another of their whereabouts by a low pant; of my presence I think they were not aware.
This went on for an hour or more, and I got colder and colder; my beard and moustache were stiff with frost. I could not much longer endure the cramped position in my scraggy tree, and I felt I must get down and light a fire, when, suddenly up came the blessed moon, and right under her the sound of three or four muskets fired together. With the help of her light and partial direction in case my companions got tired of firing, I was not going to stay up a tree to be frozen. Waiting, therefore, until she was about ‘one tree high,’ and until the lions were far asunder, on their separate beats, as well as I could make out from the sound, I came down, and capping—it was all I could do; for, as I said, I had started without powder and ball—my empty gun, which was standing against the tree, I passed at the double round the end of the water and dived into the bush on the opposite side. I have no doubt my desire was to get on as quickly as possible, but reasons for a cautious advance soon made themselves heard on all sides. An African forest was then alive at night. I only thought of the lions, and especially of the two I had left, or perhaps not left, at the water; but every little nocturnal animal that stirred kept me on the stretch—the less noise the more danger. The movement of a mouse might well be mistaken for the stealthy tread of the king of the cats. Among the trees the moon gave but scantylight, and nearly every minute I had to stop and listen as some unseen animals passed near me. Sometimes I could recognise them by their cry, but mostly it was ‘a running that could not be seen of skipping beasts’ that troubled me. The only animal I really saw that night was a rhinoceros that, with head and tail up and in a terrible fuss, crossed a few yards before me. A sound in front, and I strained my eyes into the shadowy darkness in advance; the rustling of a leaf told of life to the right or left; and the snapping of a twig of possible death in the rear. But I struggled on for an hour, I should think, when, stooping to clear a low bough, four or five muskets fired together within fifty yards told me I was at home again. I hope I was thankful then; I know I am now. Two of my Hottentot servants and a batch of Kafirs had come some distance into the bush in the hope of meeting me, and escorted me to the fire in triumph. As I held my still only half-thawed hands over it, the baulked roar of a disappointed lion rang through the camp. He had not been heard before that night. ‘He has missed you, Tlaga,[2]by a little this time,’ said my black friends. ‘Let him go back to his game.’ They were right, for in the morning we found his spoor on mine for a long way back. Whether he had come with me from the water or I had picked up a follower in the bush I never knew. My constantly stopping and listening probably saved me, for a lion seldom makes up his mind very suddenly to attack a man unless hard pressed by hunger. He likes to know all about it first, and my turning, and slow, jerky progress had probably roused his suspicions.
Two nights before this we had met with a sad misfortune. The oxen were ‘kraaled’—surrounded, that is, by a hedge of thorn-trees, and bushes strong enough to keep them in and lions out, we hoped—a mode of defence we always adopted if there was wood enough close to the outspan, or we intended stayingany length of time in the same place; though occasionally, when we only halted for the night and were distant from water, and therefore likely to be free from lions, the oxen were instead made fast to the leathern rope, or ‘trek tow,’ by which they draw the waggon, each pair—there were five to each waggon—to their own yoke in the order they worked in the team, so that they were ready and in right position for inspanning in the morning. We were lying on this occasion by a large Wangketsi village, and the cattle had been kraaled rather to prevent them getting mixed with those of the Wangketsi, as they were taken out to graze at sunrise, than from any apprehension of an attack. The three waggons were drawn up as usual on one side of the enclosure, and the Kafirs were by their fires on the other. I was asleep, but was roused by shouts, the discharge of a musket, and the sudden rush of our pack of dogs. I found a lion had sprung over a weak place in the thorn fence on to the back of an ox, and, scared by the shouting, had jumped back again the same way. According to tradition I know the ox ought to have been in his mouth, but it wasn’t. A lion will drag an ox by the nape of its neck anywhere, but he can’t carry it, much less jump a 6-foot hedge with it in his jaws. It was quite dark, but by the gleam of the fires the men, aroused by the panic of the oxen, caught sight of him, and one of the Hottentot drivers had taken a flying shot. The dogs pressed hard upon him; directly he gained the cover he stood to bay. I suppose the poor things got hampered in the bush, for presently two crawled up to us mangled and dying. The hubbub went on for some minutes, and then the lion, frightened probably by the firing and yelling—we could give no other aid to our allies—broke bay, and ten dogs returned exclusive of the two that had come in to die; two were still missing—one of them a brindled bull terrier, which we all knew must one day come to grief, for he was a most reckless, determined brute, game to go in to anything. A few days before, feeling offended at a puff adder—the worst of the Cape snakes—hissing at him, he had seized it, and notwithstanding the snake striking him on the head with its fangs, had stuck to and killed it. His head swelled to an immense size, but he pulled through and recovered. With day we went to the place where the scrimmage of the night before had occurred, and there lay ‘Tod,’ as the Hottentots had named him, with the other absentee, both dead. ‘Tod’ had apparently run straight into the lion’s mouth, for the marks of the teeth were visible enough over his back and loins. He was a rash fellow, but he died an honourable death. The loss of dogs was a very serious one, for it was through their fidelity and watchfulness we were able to sleep in comparative ease and safety. At the first sound or smell of danger they went to the fore, and walked barking round and round with the lions, just keeping clear of their spring or sudden rush, showing them they were detected and that the camp was not all asleep. In the times I am writing of I don’t think it would have been possible, save with a large number of armed watchers and fires, to have kept your oxen in anything like safety without dogs. You went to sleep in peace as soon as the dog-watch was set and the fires made up for the night. Firewood was abundant after passing the Molopo. A store of huge logs was collected directly the waggons halted, and the blaze was kept up throughout the night, the fires being shaken together and replenished by anyone who chanced to wake; and as their own safety depended on it, the men were zealous in this part of their duty.
By this time we had shot most of the kinds of game to be found away from the rivers, in large numbers—Harris’s black buck potoquan (Aigoceros niger), and the beautiful hill zebra (Equus montanus) excepted. The former I only saw once during my five years in Africa, and never got a chance at, and the latter I would not have shot if I could—he is such a pretty, tiny, thoroughbred-looking thing, the size of a small Shetland pony, and the most playful little fellow imaginable, springing about the rocky hill-tops with the surefootedness of an ibex. We had not yet fallen in with elephants oreven seen their tracks. Three years after the time of which I am writing I killed them frequently to the south, but now they were away to pastures new for the time, and we decided on going on north to the Ba-Mungwato country in the hope of finding them.
A night attack—Lupapi
A night attack—Lupapi
On our way we halted at a small spring at the bottom of a slight depression. It looked as if the water had once been much larger, and might have occupied the best part of the area. There was a trickling overflow, which, after running a few yards, tumbled into a hole and disappeared; hence its name ‘Lupapi,’ or the ‘Mouse.’ This was the very worst place for lions I ever knew; not so much from their number as their insolent audacity. I stopped here on three separate occasions, and each time was molested more than sufficiently. On this, the first, we had made, luckily, a very strong kraal. The fires would not burn brightly, as there was a misty rain falling. At 10p.m.or half-past we had only just turned in when we were attacked in force by two lions and a lioness. Our vedettes, the dogs, were driven in, and the enemy charged down upon the cattle enclosure. The noise, of course, woke us all, and dogs, Kafirs, Hottentots, Murray and myself had our work fully cut out; our assailants kept just outside the firelight, making savage rushes at the dogs, but never giving us the chance of a shot. I stood for a long time in very scant attire (someone brought me a jacket and trousers later on), my first entrance to the scene being anything but noble, for on running from the waggon to the front my foot caught in a creeper, and I fell heavily. The Kafirs behaved admirably, never yielding an inch, though the lions were very determined. After half an hour or so we nursed the fires into brighter glow, and increased the circle of light around us, and things grew rather calmer. We could hear every breath and angry purr, though as we were looking into the dark we could see nothing. For some time I made a Kafir stand beside me and throw brands into the darkness, hoping by a gleam to get sufficient indication of the whereabouts of our foes for a shot—but in vain. I fired frequently as near as I could guess on the spot where the purring seemed to come from, and could hear the angry beast make a dash at the pinging ball. But I struck nothing save the ground. However, we had checked the onset, and now had only to keep on the alert. Just before the day broke the siege was raised, and I was on horseback to look out a better camping-ground for the next night. As I cleared the low jungle which lay around us, a lioness broke away from the edge of it and took across an opening beyond. She was eighty yards from me, rather too long a shot for the old Purdey; but there was cover ahead from which I could not cut her off, and I was savage enough at her unwished-for attentions during the night, for she was, no doubt, one of the three, and oh! how glad I was when I heard the ball thud, and saw her stride short. I mounted and rode her to a standstill in a couple of hundred yards, when she squatted in front of a bush. I gotwithin twenty or twenty-five yards of her, intending to dismount, but found I had fired all my loose balls away during the night, and that the one in the barrel was all I had to rely on. I have a weakness for a second bullet, and backing my pony a little further off I told my after-rider to go to the waggon and bring me a fresh supply. He was only absent a few minutes, I keeping watch on the lioness meanwhile. On his return I loaded the empty barrel, and, getting off for a steady shot, found to my dismay that, although I could see her well enough whilst sitting on my horse, the long grass hid her entirely when on my feet. I could not remount, for the after-rider had removed the horse, and it is not probable the lioness would have allowed me to do so without interference. For a moment I was in a fix, but about ten yards to my left I saw a dead mimosa-tree with a fork in it five feet from the ground. It appeared my only chance, though a risky one; and I wonder to this day that the beast did not charge when she saw the scrub moving as I passed through it. She did not, however, and I gained my fork and could now see her quite plainly, and she me likewise, for she never took her eyes off for one second. Her head was full front. I aimed between her eyes, but a twig must have turned the ball, for I was firing from a rest, and it only bored a clean hole through her ear. She struck it angrily with her paw, and then faced me again. The second shot was more successful, and she dropped dead. I had hit her the first time very far aft, but I think she must have been more crippled than I had supposed, or she would never have allowed me to move about so clumsily without attempting a diversion.
The second attack, a year afterwards, was not so prolonged, but the lions pressed the men so hard that they had to take refuge between the fires and the hedge of the kraal, and the beasts twice crossed the line of firelight in pursuit. The third imbroglio at this water was more serious, but the initiative this time was with me. John, my after-rider, woke me very early one morning to tell me a lioness and her cub were drinking at the spring, from which we were lying only 200 yards distant. Ordering him to saddle two horses—they had not yet been loosed from the waggon-wheels to which we always made them fast in pairs—I slipped on my clothes and, jumping on the back of one of them, galloped towards the spring, followed by John, half a dozen Kafirs, and the dogs, hoping to cut off mother and child from the thick bush behind them. But they beat me; and the dogs, taking the scent, followed them. The Kafirs had come with me, partly to see the fun and partly, in case of my shooting the lioness, to catch the cub, which, when it is quite young, they manage to do by chasing and dodging it, and throwing their short skin carosses over it. They then roll it up like a baby in swaddling clothes, with only its head out at one end and its tail at the other; round the bundle they wind a leathern riem or strap, and pass the snarling though now harmless little beast from one to another, saying pretty things of its father and mother, aunts and uncles, &c.
‘Post equitem sedet “fulva” cura’—The lioness does the scansion
‘Post equitem sedet “fulva” cura’—The lioness does the scansion
The dogs very soon brought the lioness to bay, and I got within thirty yards, but from the thickness of the bush could neither see them nor her. I shifted my position once or twice in the hope of making out what was going on, standing up in my stirrups looking for an opening, that I might dismount and get a shot. Suddenly the barking of the dogs and snapping snarl of the lioness ceased, and I thought she had broken bay and gone on, but in a second I heard a roar on the horse’s right quarter, in a different direction from that into which I had been peering, and, looking round, saw her with her mouth open, clearing a rather high patch of bush twenty yards from me. There was no time to get off the horse, and no possibility of a shot from his back, for the charge was on hisrightflank, and you cannot shoot to the right. I did the only thing that I could—jammed the spurs in and tried to make a gallop of it; but my follower was too close, and before I could get up full speed I heard her strike the ground heavily twice in her bound,and with the third she sat up behind me. She jumped short, however, and failed to get hold with her mouth, but drove her front claws well into the horse’s quarters, and a hind foot underneath him, and so clung, but only for a moment; for the poor beast, maddened by fright and pain, and unable to stand up under the extra weight, became unmanageable, threw his head up, and swerved under the projecting bough of a tree which, striking me on the chest, swept me from the saddle against the lioness, and we rolled to the ground together. A sharp rap on the head, from my having fallen on a stump, stunned me for a minute or two, and I woke to life to find John kneeling alongside of me, asking me if I was dead, which was a needless question, seeing I was at the time sitting up rubbing my eyes. ‘What’s the matter?’I said, but at the same instant I heard the dogs again baying fifty yards off, and recollection came back. Rising to my feet, I staggered like a drunken man, rather than walked towards thesound, and propped myself up against a tree, for I was still weak and dazed; indistinctly I could occasionally see both dogs and lioness. Presently, something broke through the thinner part of the bush, and I fired and wounded one of the dogs. And the lioness, tired by the protracted worrying, and startled perhaps by the sound of the gun, bounded off and escaped without a shot. I have been often asked by those who have seen the sketch, ‘Oh, but why did you not turn round and shoot her from the saddle?’ And all the answer I could or can give is, ‘It’s easy to say but difficult to do,’ and that in a second we were on the ground together. The men told Livingstone that the dogs came out so close upon the lioness that she, rather flustered at being swept from the horse’s back, turned to fight with them, and took no notice of me. We caught the horse four miles off, and I sewed up and cured his wounds, but he was never fit for anything again, bolting dangerously at a stump or other dark object. A hard spin after a straight-horned gemsbok killed him.
It was here at Lupapi that I first saw the wild dogs hunting. I had gone towards the water on the chance of a shot, late one afternoon, and as I got into the little flat in which the spring lay, an antelope broke through the bush on my right, panic-stricken and blown. Thirty yards behind it came the wild dogs; before it had gained the middle of the open space they ran into it, and though I was within 100 yards, they had torn it nearly to pieces when I got up. They then retired a short distance, sitting down and watching menacingly whilst I cut away part of the hind quarters, and the moment I turned my back swooped down on their prey, dismembering and putting it out of sight in an incredibly short time. They are ugly-looking brutes, more like jackals than dogs, with great endurance in running, and great grip of jaw. Three or four head the pack, holding the scent. As they tire, three or four others take their places, the pack running loosely after the leaders.
We reached the kraals of the Ba-Mungwato, but met with asurly reception. The chief wished to play the part of the great potentate, and declined seeing us, sending messengers for presents and specifying what they were to be. His envoys, however, returned empty-handed, with a reply that we were not in the habit of giving without expectation of some return; that if we could not see him we would go to the next tribe; that we had come to hunt elephants in his country, and to feed his people; but that if he did not wish us to do so, or would not help us in our hunting, neither would we send him any gift in anticipation, or on the chance of changing his mind, adding that we should mention his politeness to other white men, who would henceforth avoid him. So the day passed. Two or three lounging fellows of the tribe told my men yarns of Secomi’s power and of the retaliation he took upon his enemies, mentioninginter aliathat we were encamped, having been led to it by his orders, upon the very spot where last year he had disposed of a party of Matabili who had come on an embassage. Hottentots are open to swaggering stories, but in this instance their credulity was confirmed when shortly before sunset they rambled out in advance of the waggons, and found that we were in acul de sac, the hills closing in round us 300 yards off and offering no passage through them, and, horror of horrors! on the ground lay a number of human skulls.
They came back in great fear, and told us the result of their explorations. We were not much disturbed, but I thought it wise to take precautions against surprise, and served out ammunition to the men, bidding them sleep with their muskets handy and take their cue from us. The night, however, passed quietly. About 7 in the morning news was brought me that the great man was approaching with a number of his warriors. I ordered the horses to be made fast to the waggon-wheels and the oxen to be tied, ready for inspanning, to the trek tow, and then allotted to each man his tree, intimating very clearly that, in the case of a disturbance, they were to follow, not set, an example, and that if anyone fired a shot before I did, I would shoot him.
Secomi came up with his spearmen, and sat down opposite me, fifteen feet from our fire, where we were taking our morning coffee. Livingstone had sent a very fine old Bechuana fighter with us as a kind of head man, a most dignified superior fellow, by name Syami (Anglicè, I believe, ‘stand firm’), who had won great renown in many a fight, and once, when wounded badly and left for dead, on coming to had broken off the shafts of the assegais, and crawled three miles on hands and knees to a friendly village, with the irons still in him. This man we put up as our champion, and for an hour and a half did he argue in our interests, speaking with all the untrammelled fluency of uncivilised man. We understood but little of what he said, and that only by signs, not words; but he was evidently very eloquent. The chief at first would hardly listen to him, but was by degrees brought to treat upon the matter, making suggestions as to what presents would be likely to assuage his wrath; but we firmly refused to budge an inch from our original lines, until he should give us a guide to the next tribe, for after his conduct we told him we were determined not to shoot in his country. There was no active sign of hostility. The position Secomi had placed himself in with respect to the muzzle of my gun, which lay across my knees, exercised perhaps a calming influence; but he would not help us in any way, and steadily refused guides. We were wearied of the long discussion, and I called to the Hottentots to inspan the oxen and loose the horses; this operation was watched intently, without remark, by the chief and his followers. I then gave orders to turn the waggons, for I had the night before ascertained the direction of the Bakaa Hills. As the oxen slowly brought the heavy carts round and faced the other way, I gave the order to trek, and the faces of the Ba-Mungwato were a sight to see. Throughout the preliminary operations they had watched us eagerly, believing us ignorant of the trap into which we had been inveigled, and hoping that we should go further on into it. I do not think they would even thenhave attacked us, but their feelings would have been relieved by our disappointment and the success of their arrangements. The bird had, however, seen the snare and escaped out of the hand of the fowler. They stood stupefied and crestfallen, and the waggons moved on without a word or sign of opposition. I brought up the rear with the loose oxen and horses. We had gained 300 or 400 yards from the camping ground, which was still in sight, when I heard the sound of running behind me, and turning saw a man coming on at the top of his speed after us. He threw up his hands to show he was carrying no arms, and I grounded my gun and waited for him. ‘What is it?’ ‘I am sent by the chief to take you wherever you like to go!’ ‘Lead on to the Bakaa then!’ and thus ended our first and only difficulty with the natives.
On our arrival we found this people in a pitiable state; the crops had failed, and they were starving. The chief welcomed us warmly, asked what we had come for, and on receiving answer to hunt elephants, besought us to take his people and feed them, putting his country and his services at our disposal. On condition thathispeople during their stay with me were to bemypeople, I accepted 600 men, women, and children in the most terrible state of starvation. No white man, emaciated as these poor fellows were, could have walked ten yards—the two bones in the lower arm and leg were distinctly visible, and you could see them working in the joints and attachments; in truth, nearly the whole party were bones covered with skin, and poor skin too, for from poverty of blood you could hardly have found a sound patch large enough to lay a crown piece on. The chief introduced three of the head men to me, and bade me hold them responsible for the rest, and I did—and never had the very slightest trouble.
We started for the hunting grounds next morning, and were among the elephants in a day or two. There have been discussions as to who is king among the beasts, and to this day the lion is generally given the title. But look down that narrow game-track. A lion is coming up it from the water. As he turns the curve in the winding path he sees that a rhinoceros or buffalo is coming down to drink. He slinks into the bush, lies very low, gives them the road, lets them pass well by, and then resumes his interrupted way. If this is the king, he is exceedingly courteous to his subjects—one might even think just a little in awe of some of them. King of the cats in Africa he may be, and is; but king of the beasts he is not.
Come with me to a desert pool some clear moonlight night when the shadows are deep and sharply cut, and the moon herself, in the dry, cloudless air, looks like a ball. All is nearly as bright as day, only the light is silver, not gold. Sit down on that rock and watch the thirsty animals as they drink—buffalo, rhinoceros, antelope, quagga, and occasionally, if the water is large, lions too. But what has frightened the antelope and quagga that they throw their heads up for a second and fade away into the shadows? The other beasts, too, are listening, and now leave the sides of the pond. Nothing but the inevitable, irrepressible jackal, thatgaminamongst wild things, remains in view. As yet your dull human ears have caught no sound, but very soon the heavy tread, and low, rumbling note of an oncoming herd of elephants reaches you. They are at the water. The jackals have sat down with their tails straight out behind them, but not another creature is to be seen. The king drinks. Not a sound is heard. He squirts the water over his back, makes the whole pool muddy, and retires solemnly, leaving his subjects, who now gather round, to make the best of what he has fouled. This is the king in the opinion of the beasts. You may think him a nervous monarch, subject to panic, and I do not know that you are not right; but he has weight in the animal world, you may be assured.
This African elephant is an uncomely, ragged fellow, with his bad facial angle, huge ears, long forelegs, sliced off quarters, and generally untidy appearance; but he carries fine tusks, and often gives you a lot of trouble. I haveridden nearly twenty miles on his spoor before coming up with him, and liked him all the better for it. He is wanting in ready wit, but is a wise, thoughtful being in his ponderous way, and a great hand at combination. He wishes to feed on the top of a tree, finds it too strong for him alone, calls on a friend or two, and, with an all-together swing, they bring it to the ground. When at bay, he has a fancy for pushing down a tree on your head and charging through the branches. His friend tumbles into a pitfall—by the way, males very seldom do, for, fearing no other animal, they carry their trunks down; the sensitiveness of that organ warns them of the danger, and they will walk securely amongst a nest of these traps and neatly uncover them, throwing the reeds and grass into the air with scorn. The cows, however, are frequently taken, for, anxious about their calves—which are often attacked by lions—they carry their trunks in the air, feeling for a chance scent of the enemy. The Kafirs sometimes lie in wait by the water near to which the pits are dug, and after the elephants or other game have drunk, raise a shout, and in the hurry of the retreat the living graves reap their harvest.
These pitfalls are 10 feet long by about 9 deep and 4 wide at the top, narrowing as they deepen, so that a large beast gets jammed in them; they are made larger specially for elephants, and are most skilfully covered with reeds, grass, and a few handfuls of sand. I have ridden into them horse and all, and I have walked into them; in the first instance, I shook my feet out of the stirrups in time to prevent my legs being crushed, and managed to scramble out from the horse’s back. In the second, walking on the high bank of the Zouga River, I was rating one of my drivers in the river-bed below for punishing his oxen, when I suddenly felt the ground give way beneath me, and amidst a shower of dust and broken reeds thought I could catch the sound of laughter from the waggon—let us hope I was mistaken. Luckily this one had no stake at the bottom, as many have. But we have left our elephant in the trap too long; let us return to him. His friends at first run off panic-stricken, but often come back affected by his piteous calls for help; and, swinging their heavy forefeet, strike the sandy soil with the front part, cutting away earth from the end or side of the pitfall, quicker than a navvy could with a spade, and at last successfully freeing their companion, who stamps all the débris of the broken-down sides beneath his feet, by helping him with their trunks up the rough kind of incline they have made. This occurred one night within 300 yards of our waggons; we, of course, did not see the operations, but we heard them being carried on, and the elephants talking to one another, and these were the inferences the Kafirs drew next morning from the foot-marks and appearances, and they assured me the case was not uncommon. If the wariness of these heavy animals among pitfalls is wonderful, not less to be admired is the way in which they manage to clamber up trackless heights, and come down by impossible-looking paths. A wall of rock 300 feet high is before me; immediately along the edge runs a shelf five or six feet wide, in places so precipitous that you could only slip down it, and even that at considerable risk, but over it, in Indian file, come eighteen or twenty elephants making their way to the jungle below. As they reach the sharp inclines they sit down, and thrusting their hind legs straight out under them, as far forward as they can, they ‘go it,’ as Albert Smith used to say of the Alpine tourist, and everyone comes safely to the bottom. They take readily to deep water, displacing so much that only the ridge of the back, and upper part of the head down to the eyes, show above the surface; they carry the trunk up and swim strongly. I have known them come to the opposite side of a river, and finding the bank too steep to climb, at once begin pounding it with their forefeet until they had established a firm resting-place for one gigantic rammer, and then starting from their fresh point of departure, go on making steps till the flight was complete—this was in India.
In elephant country we were always obliged to be very careful, for a single shot at night will sometimes drive aherd far away. Unlike the rhinoceros and buffalo, elephants seldom drink twice at the same place in a river. This is partly due to caution, though perhaps it may chiefly depend on their soon eating up a district, and having to seek new feeding grounds. With this object they frequently travel great distances—fifty miles or more—in a night. This will not appear so remarkable if it is considered that the bulls often stand fifteen miles from the water, and walk to and fro in the hot nights without missing, though during the colder season they are contented with alternate nights. In India, where vegetation is rank and the forests dense, elephants hold on to the same locale.
The ears of the African elephant are enormous—six feet in length, and broad in proportion, though I never measured the breadth. The lower end just touches the point for the side shot. I was once hunting these animals in the Ba-Quaina country, and had killed three, when a tiny dark wreath on the horizon warned us of a coming thunderstorm. A South African sky is for nine months quite free of cloud; for 300 out of the 365 days of the year the sun rises as glowing copper, and sets as flaming gold, without a framing of any sort. A happy thought struck me: I ordered the Kafirs to cut off an ear from one of the dead elephants, and, lying curled up beneath it, I escaped a wet jacket, though the rain came down in waterspouts, and I stood six feet. The scientists of the future may find occupation for some time to come in developing the cause of abnormal ears, sloping backs, thorns at the ends of lions’ tails, and a number of other little peculiarities in beasts, birds, insects and fishes; but they ought not to delay, for many types are already on the wane.
The elephant’s head is wonderfully constructed. If it were great masses of bone and muscle, the ligaments of the neck would need to be of extraordinary power to support it; but between the larger bones, and in all admissible parts of the skull, the spaces are filled in with a cellular, bony structure, fulfilling both requirements of strength and lightness.
I believe some people suppose the Carthaginians tamed and used the African elephant; they could hardly have had Mahouts Indian fashion, for there is no marked depression in the nape of the neck for a seat, and the hemming of the ears,[3]when erected, would have half-smothered them. My knowledge does not allow me to raise any argument on this point; but might not the same market have been open to the dwellers at Carthage as was afterwards to Mithridates, who, I suppose, drew his supply from India, where they have been broken and made to do man’s work from time immemorial?Videfriezes, carvings, pictures, stories, myths innumerable—the last running back into obscurity—the elephant holding in them the position of the ‘gin’ in the Arab tales. Half the world has at one time been thehabitatof this great pachyderm or its congeners. Siberia, with its fossil ivory mines, and Europe everywhere, are its tombs. Destroyed or driven south by some climatic change, India and Africa are its present homes; but in Africa the place thereof shall soon know it no more, and to our great-great-grandchildren the old ‘tlou’ will be as the mammoth is to us.
The elephant’s age is a disputed point; but, as no one has quite decided, let me put it down at 200 years, upon these two grounds: 1st, that most animals live four or five times as long as they take to attain maturity, and an elephant is certainly not a ‘man’ till he is fifty; 2ndly, that I had charge for the Government of a large take of elephants caught in a ‘coopum’ in India. They were sometimes, while being broken, very troublesome, and if they got beyond the control of the men a tame elephant, ‘Lachmé,’ was called in to ‘whip’ them. Lachmé had been a pagoda elephant sixty years; we had therecord of her capture as a full-grown female. That makes her upwards of a hundred, and she was then, in 1847, quite in her prime, without a sign of old age, and I dare say is very much the same still. The young calves, too, are the smallest beasts for the size they afterwards attain, and must take a long while growing. Such tinies are they that I have had them run under my pony, and touched their little pinky bodies with my foot—poor morsels! I never could shoot the female with any satisfaction, and I think I never did at all but twice; males were plentiful enough.
Men differ as to the height of the African elephant. I have seen thousands, and shot the largest one I ever saw. I measured him, and he was 12 ft. 2 in. I haveheardof one 17 feet high, but I did not see him, and it is long ago, so perhaps he was the last of the giants! A tusk was exhibited in the African Exhibition in Regent Street, in 1890, by Sir Edmund Loder. It weighed 180 lbs. odd, and was by far the heaviest single tusk known, I should suppose; but I have been shown a pair, 303 lbs. and 9 feet in length. My largest trophy was rather under 8 feet long, and the pair weighed between 230 and 240 lbs. They belonged to a bull I killed on the Zouga; he was the smallest old one I shot in Africa-not more than 9 feet high. I went out with John one bitter morning to provide food for the camp, and, having dropped a white rhinoceros, made for the waggons to get hot coffee and breakfast. On the way we came across an elephant, its head entirely hidden by a thick bush. Thinking, from its size, it was a cow, I was passing it unnoticed, when John, with the desire, I suppose, of adding to his collection of tails, begged me to shoot it. I fired, and down went the bush, as, with a shrill trumpet, the elephant trampled through it, disclosing nearly six feet of naked ivory, over the curve; so long were the tusks, and so diminutive their owner, that the points barely cleared the ground. A second ball finished him.
The drier the country the smaller the elephants. On the Limpopo the average height of the bulls was 11 feet, on the Zouga and through the Kalahari 10 feet. The ivory of the smaller kind was larger and, I am told, closer in grain. These tusks, which are deposited by a gum, are very slow of growth; and the molar teeth, to ensure a supply for a long life, have always a young tooth growing at the back of the alveolar process which pushes out the old ones as they become worn.
Most of my elephants were killed from horseback with the shoulder-shot; the cover is rarely thick enough to allow you to get within reach on foot. Besides, on foot you can seldom dispose of more than two at a time; whereas from horseback, under favourable conditions, you may double or even treble that number. Sometimes you must crawl in, and then, of course, you take the head shot if you can get it; but you ought to be within fifteen yards, on a line parallel with your quarry, just a trifle in advance, and then a ball in the lower depression, or temple, will, nineteen times out of twenty, be instantly fatal. I see Sir S. Baker does not believe in the front shot for Africans; but, though as a rule I agree with him entirely, I certainly have killed them by this. Their heads slope so much backwards, however, that it often fails. In tolerable ground there is but little difficulty; but in thick bush there is always some danger, more especially if you are particular in choosing your tusks; and in riding the bull you select out of the herd there is a certain amount of knack—you settle to him and then press him individually, disregarding the rest of the herd for the time. He shoots ahead of his companions, or turns round on you and charges; in either case you have gained your object—separation. If he charges, put the horse to the gallop and let him follow you, the farther the better. Watch as he slacks off, keeping about twenty yards ahead, and pull up sharp when he comes to a stand. He is too blown to charge again, and when he turns to go after his mates he must give you his side; one or two shots properly placed at short range are enough, and you are away again after the flying herd. The oftener you attack the easier the victory, for the heavy beasts get tired, and in consequence are much less difficult to kill.
The little elephant is an amusing imitator of the ways of his elders. I have come upon cow herds with a number of very small calves. As the mothers move off, disturbed and trumpeting, the little fellows fancy it their business to follow suit. Up goes each tiny trunk with a penny trumpet and a fussy waving to and fro. When frightened they run under their mothers, and peer out in the most old-fashioned way; and if you have been unfortunate enough to kill the parent, they will often follow your horse—poor little beggars!
The mothers, I think, as a rule, do not show so much affection for their young as might be expected. They are too nervous and easily affected to remain mistresses of themselves, and, so far as I have experience, forget their offspring in troubled times. You have occasionally striking instances to the contrary, but they are the exceptions. In a large herd of females I once shot a young bull, believing him a good tusked cow; as he dropped, a gaunt old lady, presumably his mamma, fell out from the herd, and charged me at once. I was on horseback and galloped away from her, as she had shabby stumpy tusks, and though I was that day shooting for the pot, there were plenty of others to choose from. She turned back to the dead elephant, which lay in the opening through which I had to pass to get at the others, and stood guard over it, charging in the most determined way every time I attempted to get by—which I had to do at last by allowing her to follow me and then doubling on her. This scene I remember more clearly than I otherwise perhaps should because of an extraordinary sight. When I caught the elephants again they were slinging down a hillside. Dismounting, I killed three of them, two pitching on their heads and rolling over like rabbits.
We shot through the country of the Bakaa for about seven weeks, north and south of the rocky hills on which they lived, and I was here first introduced to that giant tree, the baobab. I was following elephant spoor on foot, with three or four men, through thick thorns, when I found that they had led me off the tracks; and on looking up for a reason why, quite close to me stood what at first I took to be the body of an elephant, I threw my gun into my left hand to be in readiness, to the amusement of my followers, who, knowing I had never as yet fallen in with the baobab (Adansonia digitata), had led me a little aside to grin at my astonishment. These quaint, enormous trees seem to have belonged, like many of the animals of Africa, to a bygone world, and, finding the present doesn’t suit them, they are taking their leave. A few of the old ones still remain, but I never saw a young one. The largest I measured was 74 feet girth at four feet from the ground, and the smallest 45 feet, but I perhaps overlooked smaller specimens.
We had very good sport, unbroken by accident or anything remarkable. Our starvelings had fattened day by day, and were now shining and very merry and happy in their new skins. Uncivilised man does not take long to pick up; he only wants food, and plenty of it. Shall I be believed if I say that Kafirs will eat, if you give it them, from 12 lbs. to 15 lbs. of solid meat in the day? It appears, I know, an impossible feat, but I can vouch for it and partly explain it, too; for in a short journey with Livingstone, between the Chobé and Zambesi rivers, two or three years after this, we had no sort of meal with us, and were consequently obliged to live on meat alone. And I certainly thought the dear old Doctor was very greedy, for he would eat 4 lbs. for his breakfast and the same or more for his dinner. On telling him my opinion of his performance, he retaliated, ‘Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve been thinking just the same of you!’ The fact is that a very large quantity of meat is required if nothing else is eaten. When I got back to the waggons I tried giving two or three of the men a handful of beans with their rations, and found they could not possibly eat more than 3 lbs. of flesh, the smaller mixed diet meeting all the requirements of the system.