CHAPTER XVII.
The Boy’s Experience With an African Buffalo—The Boy’s Pa Shoots Roman Candles to Scare the Buffaloes—The Boy’s Pa Tames the Wild Animals.
When Pa told us that he had located a place where we could get all the wild African buffalo that we wanted, I thought of the pictures I had seen of the killing of buffaloes in America, where all the buffalo hunter had to do was to ride a horse after a herd of the animals, that couldn’t run faster than a yoke of oxen, pick out a big bull and ride alongside of him and fire bullets into his vital parts at about ten feet range, until his liver was filled full of holes and he had the nose bleed, and when he fell down from loss of blood, dismount and skin him for a lap robe. The American buffalo would always run away and the hunter could kill him if he hadcartridges enough, and never be in any more danger than a farmer milking a cow.
I thought we would have about the same kind of experience with African buffalo, only we intended to lasso them and bring them to camp alive for the show business, but instead of the African buffalo running away from you, he runs at you on sight and tries to gouge out your inside works with his horns, and paws you with his hoofs, and when he gets you down he kneels down on you and runs horns all through your system and rolls over on your body like a setter dog rolling on an old dead fish.
The African buffalo certainly has a grouch, as though he had indigestion from eating cactus thorns, and when he sees a man his eyes blaze with fire and he gets as crazy as an anarchist and seems to combine in his make-up the habits of the hyena, the tiger, the man-eating shark and the Texas rattlesnake.
I wouldn’t want such an animal for a pet,but Pa said the way to get buffaloes was to go after them and never let up until you had them under your control. So we started out under Pa’s lead to capture African buffalo, and while the returns are not all in of the dead and wounded, we know that our expedition is pretty near used up.
These African buffaloes live in a marsh, where the grass and cane grows high above them, and the only way you can tell where they are is to watch the birds flying around and alighting on the backs of the animals to eat wood ticks and gnats. The marsh is so thick with weeds that a man cannot go into it, so we planned to start the airship on the windward side of the marsh, after lining up the whole force of helpers, negroes and white men, and building a corral of timber on the lee side of the marsh. Pa and the cowboy and I went in the airship, with those honk-honk horns they have on automobiles, and those megaphones that are used at footballgames, and Pa had a bunch of Roman candles to scare the buffaloes.
When the fence was done, which fifty men had worked on for a week, it run in the shape of a triangle or a fish net, with a big corral at the middle. Mr. Hagenbach sent up a rocket to notify Pa that he was ready to have him scare the buffaloes out of the marsh, down the fence into the corral.
Pa had the gas bag all full, a mile across the marsh, tied to a tree with a slip noose, so when we all got set he could pull a string and untie the slip noose.
Well, everything worked bully, and when Pa tied her loose we went up into the air about fifty feet, and Pa steered the thing up and down the marsh like a pointer dog ranging a field for chickens.
It was the greatest sight I ever witnessed, seeing more than two hundred buffalo heads raise up out of the tall grass and watch the airship, looking as savage as lions eating raw meat.
First they never moved at all, but we began to blow the honk horns, and then we yelled through the megaphones to “get out of there, you sawed off short horns,” and then they began to move away from the airship across the marsh, and we followed until they began to get into a herd, nearly on the other side of the marsh, but they only walked fast, splashing through the mud.
When we got almost across the marsh Pa said now was the time to fire the Roman candles, so we each lit our candle, and the fire and smoke and the fire balls fairly scorched the hair of the buffaloes in the rear of the herd, and in a jiffy the whole herd stampeded out of the marsh right toward the fence, bellowing in African language, scared half to death, the first instance on record that an African buffalo was afraid of anything on earth.
We followed them until they got to the fence, but only about one hundred got intothe corral, the others going around the fence and chasing the keepers into the jungle andhooking the negroes in the pants, and some of the negroes are running yet, and will, no doubt, come out at Cairo, Egypt.
Some of Those Negroes Are Running Yet, and Will No Doubt Come Out at Cairo, Egypt.
Some of Those Negroes Are Running Yet, and Will No Doubt Come Out at Cairo, Egypt.
Some of Those Negroes Are Running Yet, and Will No Doubt Come Out at Cairo, Egypt.
Mr. Hagenbach and the white men got up in trees and watched Pa and the airship, and when we got where the fence narrowed up at the corral Pa let the airship come down to the ground and anchored it to a stump and yelled for the boss of the expedition and the men to come down out of the trees and help capture some of the best specimens; so they came down and tore out the wings of the fence and placed them across so we had the buffaloes in a pen, and then Mr. Hagenbach, who had been getting a little jealous of Pa, came up to him and shook his hand and told him he was a wonder in the capturing of wild animals, and Pa said don’t mention it, and Pa took the makings and made himself a cigarette and smoked up, and Mr. Hagenbach asked Pa how we were going to get the buffaloes out of the corral, ’cause theywere fighting each other in the far end of the pen, and Pa said you just wait, and he sent for the cages, enough to hold about ten of the buffaloes, and we let the gas out of the airship and went into camp right there, and Pa bossed things for about two days, until the buffaloes got good and hungry, and then we backed the cages up to an opening in the fence and put hay in the far end of the cages, and the herd began to take notice.
We wanted the big bulls and some cows, and nature helped us on the bulls, ’cause they fought the weaker ones away from the cages, and walked right up the incline into the cages, and Pa went in and locked the doors, and when we got the cages full of bulls and started to haul the cages to camp by the aid of some of the negroes who had returned alive, by jingo, the cows followed the cages with the bulls in, and you couldn’t drive them away.
We loaded the gas bag on to a sort of stone boat, and Pa rigged up a couple of oxyokes and in some way hypnotized a few cow buffaloes so he could drive them, and they hauled the stone boat with the airship to camp, and we got there almost as soon as the cages did, and Pa was smoking as contented as though he was walking on Broadway, and with an ox gad he would larrup the oxen and say, “Haw Buck,” like a farmer driving oxen to plow a field.
Pa got his wild oxen so tame before we got to camp that they would eat hay out of his hand, and when we rounded up in our permanent camp and looked over our stock and killed some of the buffaloes that had followed the cages, for meat for the negroes, and lit some sky rockets and fired them at the balance of the herd to drive them away from camp, the negroes, who had always had a horror of meeting wild buffaloes, thought Pa was a superior being to be able to tame a whole herd of the most savage animals, and they got down on their knees and placedtheir faces in the dust in front of Pa and worshipped him, and they wouldn’t get upoff the ground until Pa had gone around and put his feet on the necks of all the negroes in token that he acknowledged himself to be their king and protector, and the wives of the negroes all threw their arms around Pa and hugged him until he got tired, and he said he had rather fight buffaloes than be hugged by half naked negro women that hadn’t had a bath since Stanley discovered them, but Pa appreciated the honor, and Mr. Hagenbach said Pa was the greatest man in the world.
Pa Had to Put His Foot on Their Necks and Acknowledge Himself Their King and Protector.
Pa Had to Put His Foot on Their Necks and Acknowledge Himself Their King and Protector.
Pa Had to Put His Foot on Their Necks and Acknowledge Himself Their King and Protector.
The next day we shipped the buffaloes to the coast and had them sent to Berlin, and when we got the mail from headquarters there was an order for a lot more tigers, so I suppose we will be tigering as soon as the open season is on.
The idea is that we must get all the animals we can this year, for it is rumored that Roosevelt is coming to Africa next year to shoot big game, and all of us feel that wildanimals will be scarce after he has devastated Africa.
We got short of Salt Pork, and some time ago Pa salted down some sides of rhinoceros, and yesterday was the day to open the barrel. Pa showed the cooks how to fry rhinoceros pork, and I tell you it made you hungry to smell rhinoceros frying, and with boiled potatoes and ostrich eggs and milk gravy, made from elephant milk, we lived high, but the next day an epidemic broke out, and they laid it to Pa’s rhinoceros pork dinner, but Pa says any man who eats eight or nine fried ostrich eggs is liable to indigestion.
Gee, but this is a great country to enjoy an outing in.