I had travelled. You must have had the experience yourself to realise
the degree to which civilised man has unlearnt the use of his eyes and
ears. Whether it be a question of finding one’s bearings or deciding in
which direction to go, or of sizing up the elephant-herds from their
tracks, or of distinguishing the tracks of one kind of antelope from
those of another, or of detecting some faint trace of blood telling us
that some animal we are after has been wounded, or of knowing where
and when we shall come to some water, or of discovering a bee’s nest
with honey in it--in all such matters the native is as clever as we
are stupid. We may make some progress in this kind of knowledge and
capability, but we shall always be a bad second to the native-born
hunter of the velt.
With such men to act as your guides you get to feel that traversing
Nyíka is as safe as mountain-climbing under the guidance of skilled
mountaineers. You get to feel that you cannot lose your way or get
into difficulties about water. One reflection, however, should never
be quite absent from your mind--that at any moment these guides of
yours may abandon you. That misfortune has never happened to me, and
it is not likely to happen when the natives are properly handled.
Moreover, your friendship with them can sometimes be strengthened by
the establishment of bonds of brotherhood. A time-honoured practice of
this kind, held sacred by the natives, can be of the greatest benefit.
I am strongly in favour of the observance of these praiseworthy native
customs, and have always been most ready to go through with the
ceremonies involved.
I endeavour to win the goodwill of my guides by keeping to the pace
they set--an easy matter for me. In every other way also I take
pains to fall in with the ways and habits of the Wandorobo, so as to
attenuate that feeling of antagonism which my uncivilised friends
necessarily harbour towards the European. I owe it to this, perhaps,
that they did their utmost to find the elephant-tracks for me.
For hour after hour we continue our march, in and out, over velt and
brushwood, coming every few hours to a watering-place, and meeting in
the hollow of one valley an exceptionally large herd of oryx antelopes.
Under cover of the brushwood, and favoured by the wind, I succeed in
getting quite near this herd and thus in studying their movements close
at hand.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
PEARL-HENS ON AN ACACIA TREE.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A PAIR OF GRANT’S GAZELLES TAKING TO FLIGHT. ]
In the bush, not far from these oryx antelopes, I come unexpectedly
on a small herd of beautiful dwarf kudus. They take to flight, but
reappear for a moment in a glade. This kind of sudden glimpse of these
timid, pretty creatures is a real delight to one. Their great anxious
eyes gaze inquiringly at the intruder, while their large ears stand
forward in a way that gives a most curious aspect to their shapely
heads. The colouring of their bodies accords in a most remarkable
degree with their environment, and this accentuates the individuality
of their heads, seen thus by the hunter. Off they scamper again now,
in a series of extraordinarily long and high jumps, gathering speed as
they go, and unexpectedly darting now in one direction, now in another.
It is very exciting work tracking the fugitive kudu, and when it is a
question of a single specimen you may very well mark it down in the
end; but according to my own experience it is next to impossible to
follow up a herd, for one animal after another breaks away from it,
seeking safety on its own account.
Now we come again to an open grassy stretch of velt. With a sudden
clatter of hoofs a herd of some thirty zebras some hundred paces off
take to flight and escape unhurt by us into the security of a distant
thicket. The older animals and the leaders of the herd keep looking
backwards anxiously with outstretched necks. Even in the thicket their
bright colouring makes them discernible at this hour of the day. But
our attention is distracted now elsewhere. Far away on the horizon
appear the unique outlines of a herd of giraffes. The timorous animals
have noted our approach and are already making away--stopping at
moments to glance at us--into a dense thorn-thicket. The wind favours
us, so I quickly decide to make a detour to the right and cut them
off. After a breathless run through the brushwood I succeed in getting
within a few paces of one of the old members of the herd. This way of
circumventing a herd of giraffes--my followers helping me by moving
about all over the place, so as to put them off the scent--has not
often proved successful with me, because it can only be managed when
both wind and the formation of the country are in one’s favour.
To-day I have no mind to kill the beautiful long-limbed beast, but it
is delightful to get into such close touch with him. Now he is off,
stepping out again, swinging his long tail, his immense neck dipping
and rising like the mast of a sea-tossed ship, and the rest of the herd
with him.
Now, just because I have no thought of hunting, every kind of wild
animal crosses my path! Their number and variety are beyond belief. We
come upon more zebras, oryx antelopes, hartebeests, Grant’s gazelles,
impalla antelopes; upon ostriches, guinea-fowl (_Numida reichenowi_ and
_Acryllium vulturinum_, Hardw.), and francolins. The recent rains seem
to have conjured them all into existence here as though by magic.
But everything else has to give precedence to the elephant-tracks,
which now are all mixed up, though leading clearly to the next
watering-place, towards which we are directing our steps down a way
trodden quite hard by animals, evidently during the last few
days. Large numbers of rhinoceroses have trampled down this way to
the water, but neither they nor the elephants are to be seen in the
neighbourhood while the sun is up. They are too well acquainted with
the habits of their enemy man, and they keep at a safe distance out
on the velt. To-day, therefore, I am to catch no glimpse of either
elephant or rhinoceros. Wherever I turn my eyes, however, I see other
animals of all sorts--among others, some more big giraffes. I am not
to be put off, however, and I decide to follow up the tracks of a
number of the elephants, evidently males, giving myself up anew to the
unfailing interest I find in the study of their ways, and confirming
the observations I had already made as to their finding their chief
nourishment on the velt in tree-bark and small branches.
[Illustration: GRANT’S GAZELLES.]
[Illustration: A GOOD INSTANCE OF PROTECTIVE COLOURING. A HERD OF
GRANT’S GAZELLES ALMOST INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM THEIR BACKGROUND OF
THORN-BUSH.]
[Illustration:
A GRANT’S GAZELLE BUCK STANDING OUT CONSPICUOUSLY ON THE DRIED-UP
BED OF A LAKE NOW SO INCRUSTATED WITH SALT AS TO LOOK AS THOUGH
SNOW-COVERED.]
[Illustration: FOUR GRANT’S GAZELLES.]
Night set in more quickly than we expected while we were pitching camp
before sunset in a cutting in a thorn-thicket. Spots on which fires
had recently been lit showed us that native hunters had been there a
few days before, and my guides said they must have been the Wakamba
people, keen elephant-hunters, with whom they live at enmity, and of
whose very deadly poisoned arrows they stand in great dread. Therefore
we drew close round a very small camp-fire, carefully kept down. The
glow of a big fire might have brought the Wakamba people down on us
if they were anywhere in the neighbourhood. It seems that natives
who are at war often attack each other in the dark. It may easily be
imagined, then, that the first hours of our “night’s repose” were not
as blissful as they should have been! After a time, however, our need
of sleep prevailed, sheer physical fatigue overcame all our anxieties,
and my Wandorobo slumbered in peace. They had contrived a “charm,” and
had set up a row of chewed twigs all round to keep off misfortune.
Unfortunately it is not so easy for a European to believe in the
efficacy of these precautions! It was interesting to observe that the
Wandorobo evinced much greater fear of the poisoned arrows of the
Wakamba than of wild animals. In view of my subsequent experience, I
myself in such a situation would view the possibility of being attacked
by elephants with much greater alarm.
As it happened, however, this night passed like many another--if not
without danger, at least without mishap.
Day dawned. No bird-voices greeted it, for, strange to relate, we
found nothing but big game in this wooded wilderness, save for
guinea-fowl (_Numida reichenowi_ and _Acryllium vulturinum_, Hardw.)
and francolins. The small birds seem to have known that the water would
soon be exhausted, and that until the advent of the next rainy season
this was no place for them.
In the grey of early morning we made our way out again into the velt.
We had to visit the neighbouring watering-places and then to follow
up some fresh set of elephant-tracks. It turned out that some ten big
bull-elephants had visited one of the pools, and had left what remained
of the water a thick yellowish mud. They had rubbed and scoured
themselves afterwards against a clump of acacia trees. Judging
from the marks upon these trees some of the elephants in this herd
must have been more than eleven feet in height. With renewed zest we
followed up the fresh, distinct tracks through the bush, through all
their twistings and turnings. Again we came upon all kinds of other
animals--among others, a herd of giraffes right in our path. But these
were opportunities for the naturalist only, not for the sportsman who
was keeping himself for the elephants and would not fire a shot at
anything else unless in extreme danger. Later, at a moment when we
believed ourselves to have got quite close to the elephants, I started
an extraordinarily large land-tortoise--the biggest I have ever seen.
I could not get hold of it, however--I was too much taken up with
the hope of reaching the elephants; but after several more hours of
marching I had to call a halt in order to gather new strength. In
the end we did not overtake them. They had evidently been seriously
disquieted either by us or earlier by the Wakamba people. While we were
pitching our camp in the evening, nearly a day’s journey from our camp
of the night before, we sighted one after another three herds of elands
and four rhinoceroses on their way out into the velt to graze. During
these two days I had come within shot of about ten rhinoceroses while
on the march, and had caught glimpses of many more in the distance.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
THE HERDS OF GRANT’S GAZELLES ARE SOMETIMES MADE UP ENTIRELY OF
MALES, SOMETIMES ENTIRELY OF FEMALES. IN THIS PICTURE WE SEE A
NUMBER OF YOUNG DOES IN SEARCH OF THE SCANTY FRESH GRASS ON A
PORTION OF THE VELT WHICH NOT LONG BEFORE HAD BEEN BURNT UP.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A SMALL HERD OF GRANT’S GAZELLES. THE KILIMANJARO RANGE IN THE
BACKGROUND.]
[Illustration: YOUNG MASAI HARTEBEEST. I DID NOT SUCCEED IN MY EFFORTS
TO BRING BACK A SPECIMEN OF THIS SPECIES.]
The third day’s pursuit of the elephants also proved entirely
fruitless. We did not even come within sight of a female specimen.
My guides were now of opinion that the animals must be so thoroughly
alarmed that any further pursuit would be almost certainly in vain, so
we made our way back as best we could in a zigzag course to my main
camp, and reached it on the morning of the fourth day.
Most elephant-hunts in Equatorial Africa run on just such lines as
these and with the same result, yet they are among the finest and most
interesting experiences that any sportsman or naturalist can hope
to have. The wealth of natural life that had been given to my eyes
during those three days was simply overpowering. But if you have once
succeeded in getting within range of an African elephant, all other
kinds of wild animals seem small fry to you. You have the same kind
of feeling that the German sportsman has when after a _Brunft_
stag--he cares for no other kind of game; he has no mind for anything
but the stag. But the elephant fever attacks you out in Africa even
more virulently than the stag fever here at home.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A HERD OF HARTEBEESTS (_BUBALIS COKEI_, Gthr.).]
[Illustration: HARTEBEESTS WITH YOUNG.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
WATERBUCK.]
Yet it is fine to remember one’s ordinary shooting expeditions in the
tropics. You need some luck, of course--the velt is illimitable and
the game scattered all over it. But if the rains have just ceased, if
you have secured good guides, if you yourself are equal to facing all
the hardships, then indeed it is a wonderful experience. There is no
doubt about it--you have to be ready for a combination of every kind
of strain and exertion. You can stand it for a day perhaps, or two or
three, but you must then take a rest. The man who has gone through with
this may venture on the experiment of pursuing elephants for several
days together. He will, I think, bear me out in saying that until you
have done that also you do not know the limits of endurance and fatigue.
The most glorious hour in the African sportsman’s life is that in
which he bags a bull-elephant. When he succeeds in bringing the animal
down at close range in a thicket such as I have so often described,
his heart beats with delight--it is just a chance in such cases what
your fate may be. Wide as are the differences in the views taken by
experienced travellers and by other writers in regard to African sport
in general, they are all agreed that elephant-hunting is the most
dangerous task a man can set himself. The hunting of Indian or Ceylon
elephants--save in the case of a “rogue”--is not to be compared with
the African sport as I understand it. I do not mean the easy-going,
pleasure-excursion kind of hunt ordinarily gone in for in the African
bush, but a one-man expedition, in which the sportsman sets himself
deliberately to bag his game single-handed. That, indeed, is my idea
of how one should go after big game in such countries as Africa in all
circumstances whatever.
Barely as many as a dozen elephants have fallen to my rifle. Some of
these I killed in order to try and get hold of a young specimen which
I might bring to Europe in good condition--a desire which I have long
cherished, but which has not yet been fulfilled. Others I killed so
that I might present them to our museums.
There were immense numbers of other bull-elephants that I might have
shot, and that are probably now roaming the velt, but that I had to
spare because I was more intent upon photographing them. My photographs
are, however, ample compensation to me. While, too, it is pleasant
to me to reflect that I have left untouched so many elephants that
came within easy range, I hope, none the less, some day to bring down
a specimen adorned with a really splendid pair of tusks. This is an
aspiration not often realised by African sportsmen, even when they have
been hunting for half a lifetime. Elephants with tusks weighing nearly
five hundred pounds, like those in our illustration, are extremely
rare--even in earlier times they were met with perhaps once in a
hundred years.
The hunting of an African elephant, I repeat in conclusion, is a source
of the greatest delight to the sportsman, for even if he does not
bag his game he is well rewarded for his pains by all the interest and
excitement of the chase. But no one who has not himself gone through
with it can estimate what it involves. Even with the most perfected
equipment in regard to arms, it is often a matter of luck whether you
kill the animal outright and on the spot.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
THE SKINNING OF AN ELEPHANT. THIS SPECIMEN IS NOW IN THE NATURAL
HISTORY MUSEUM, BERLIN.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
PREPARING TO SKIN AN ELEPHANT.]
An experience I had in the Berlin Zoological Gardens illustrates this.
I was called in to dispatch a huge bull-elephant which had to be
killed, and which had rejected all the forms of poison that had been
administered to it. In order to give it a quick and painless end I
selected a newly invented elephant-rifle, calibre 10·75, loaded with 4
gr. of smokeless powder and a steel-capped bullet. On reflection the
steel cap seemed to me too dangerous in the circumstances, so I had
it filed off. I shall allow Professor Schmalz to describe what now
happened: “The first shot entered the skin between the second and third
ribs, and then simply went into splinters. It did no serious damage to
the interior organs, and a stag thus wounded would merely take madly
to flight. A piece of the cap reached the lung, but only a single
splinter had penetrated, causing a slight flow of blood. The second
shot was excellently placed, namely just below the root of the lung.
It lacerated both the lung arteries and both the bronchial, and thus
caused instant death.”
The fact that, with such a charge, a bullet fired at a distance of
less than four yards should have gone into splinters in this way says
more than one could in a long disquisition, and serves to explain the
secret of many a mishap in the African wilderness.[4]
[Illustration: A MISSIONARY’S DWELLING NEAR KILIMANJARO IN WHICH I
STAYED SEVERAL TIMES AS GUEST.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
HEAD OF A BULL-ELEPHANT KILLED BY THE AUTHOR. NOW IN THE NATURAL
HISTORY MUSEUM, BERLIN.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A FINE SPECIMEN OF A BULL-ELEPHANT KILLED BY THE AUTHOR.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
SOME AFRICAN TROPHIES. 1. SPLINTER FROM AN ELEPHANT-TUSK BROKEN
OFF IN A ROCKY REGION. 2. PORTION OF A TREE BRANCH WHICH I FOUND
STUCK IN THE JAW OF A CAPTURED LION. 3. PORTION OF A POISONED
ARROW WHICH HAD BEEN STICKING IN AN ELEPHANT THAT I WAS TRACKING;
ARROW OF THE KIND USED BY THE WAKAMBA HUNTERS. 4. NICKEL BULLET,
PUT OUT OF SHAPE, WITH WHICH I BROUGHT DOWN AN ELEPHANT. 5. IRON
BULLET USED BY A NATIVE. 6. POISONED DART FOUND STICKING IN THE
WING OF A MARABOU.]
[Illustration: BLACK-HEADED HERONS (_ARDEA MELANOCEPHALA_. VIG.
Childr.).]
X
Rhinoceros-hunting
Many sportsmen of to-day have no idea what numbers of rhinoceroses
there used to be in Germany in those distant epochs when the
cave-dweller waged war with his primitive weapons against all the
mighty animals of old--a war that came in the course of the centuries
to take the shape of our modern sport.
The visitor to the zoological gardens, who knows nothing of “big
game,” finds it hard perhaps to think of the great unwieldy “rhino”
in this capacity. Yet I am continually being asked to tell about
other experiences of my rhinoceros-hunting. I have given some already
in _With Flashlight and Rifle_. Let me, then, devote this chapter
to an account of some expeditions after the two-horned African
rhinoceros--one of the most interesting, powerful, and dangerous beasts
still living.
Rhinoceroses used to be set to fight with elephants in the arena in
Rome in the time of the Emperors. It is interesting to note that,
according to what I have often heard from natives, the two species
have a marked antipathy to each other. It is recorded that both Indian
and African rhinoceroses used to be brought to Europe alive. In our
own days they are the greatest rarities in the animal market, and must
be almost worth their weight in gold. Specimens of the three Indian
varieties are now scarcely to be found, while the huge white rhinoceros
of South Africa is almost extinct. The two-horned rhinoceros of East
Africa is the only variety still to be met with in large numbers, and
this also is on its way swiftly to extermination.
The kind of hunt I am going to tell of belongs to quite a primeval
type, such as but few modern sportsmen have taken part in. But it will
be a hunt with modern arms. It must have been a still finer thing to go
after the great beast, as of old, spear in hand. That is a feeling I
have always had. There is too little romance, too much mechanism, about
our equipment. In this respect there is a great change from the kind of
hunting known to antiquity.
It was strength pitted against strength then. Strength and skill and
swiftness were what won men the day. Later came a time when mankind
learnt a lesson from the serpent and improved on it, discharging
poisoned darts from tightened bow-strings. The slightest wound from
them brought death. Then there was another step in advance, and the
hunter brought down his game at even greater ranges with bullets
of lead and steel. A glance through the telescopic sight affixed to the
perfected rifle of to-day, a gentle pressure with the finger, and the
rhinoceros, all unconscious of its enemy in the distance, meets its end.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
RHINOCEROS HEADS.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
RHINOCEROS HEADS.]
But there is at least more danger and more romance for the modern
hunter in this unequal strife when it takes place in a wilderness
where bush and brushwood enforce a fight at close quarters. Then, if
he doesn’t kill his beast outright on the spot, or if he has to deal
with several at a time, the bravest man’s heart will have good reason
to beat fast.
Now for our start.
We make our way up the side of a hill with the first rays of the
tropical sun striking hot already on the earth. The country is wild,
the ascent is difficult, and we have to dodge now this way, now that,
to extricate ourselves from the rocky valley into which we have got.
The vegetation all around us is rank and strange; strong grass up to
our knees, and dense creepers and thorn-bushes retard our progress.
Here are the mouldering trunks of giant trees uprooted by the wind,
there living trees standing strong and unshaken. But as we advance
we come gradually to a more arid stretch, and green vegetation gives
place to a rocky region, broken into crevices and chasms. Here we find
the rock-badger in hundreds. But the leaders have given their warning
sort of whistle, and they are all off like lightning. It may be quite
a long time before they reappear from the nooks and crannies to which
they have fled. Lizards share these localities with them, and seem to
exchange warnings of coming danger. A francolin flies up in front of us
with a clatter of wings, reminding one very much of our own beautiful
heath-cock. The “cliff-springer” that miniature African chamois, one
of the loveliest of all the denizens of the wilderness, sometimes puts
in an appearance too. It is a mystery how it manages to dart about
from ridge to ridge as lightly as an india-rubber ball. If you examine
through your field-glasses, you discover to your astonishment that they
do not rest on their dainty hoofs like others of their kind, nor can
they move about on them in the same fashion. They can only stand on the
extreme points of them. It looks almost as though nature were trying
to free a mammal from its bonds to mother earth, when you see the
“cliff-springer” fly through the air from rock to rock. It would not
astonish you to find that it had wings. Now here, now there, you hear
its note of alarm, and then catch sight of it. It would be difficult
to descry these animals at all, only that there are generally several
of them together.... Deep-trodden paths of elephants and rhinoceroses
cut through the wooded wilderness; paths used also by the heavy elands,
which are fitted for existence alike in the deep valleys and high up
on the highest mountain. I myself found their tracks at a height of
over 6,000 feet, and so have all African mountain-climbers worthy of
the name, from Hans Meyer, the first man to ascend Kilimanjaro, down to
Uhlig, who, on the occasion of his latest expedition up to the Kibo,
noted the presence of this giant among antelopes at a height of 15,000
feet.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
AN ELAND BULL (_OREAS LIVINGSTONI_, Sclat.). I MANAGED TO PREPARE
THIS ANIMAL’S SKIN SUCCESSFULLY, AND IT MAY NOW BE SEEN IN FLAWLESS
CONDITION IN THE BERLIN NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM. ]