THE FIRST ROUND
“After this, as it was now midday, and I had killed enough meat, we
marched back triumphantly to camp, where I proceeded to concoct a stew
of buffalo beef and compressed vegetables. When this was ready we ate
the stew, and then I took a nap. About four o’clock, however, Gobo woke
me up, and told me that the head man of one of Wambe’s kraals had
arrived to see me. I ordered him to be brought up, and presently he
came, a little, wizened, talkative old man, with a waistcloth round his
middle, and a greasy, frayed kaross made of the skins of rock rabbits
over his shoulders.
“I told him to sit down, and then abused him roundly. ‘What did he
mean,’ I asked, ‘by disturbing me in this rude way? How did he dare to
cause a person of my quality and evident importance to be awakened in
order to interview his entirely contemptible self?’
“I spoke thus because I knew that it would produce an impression on
him. Nobody, except a really great man, he would argue, would dare to
speak to him in that fashion. Most savages are desperate bullies at
heart, and look on insolence as a sign of power.
“The old man instantly collapsed. He was utterly overcome, he said; his
heart was split in two, and well realized the extent of his
misbehaviour. But the occasion was very urgent. He heard that a mighty
hunter was in the neighbourhood, a beautiful white man, how beautiful
he could not have imagined had he not seen (this to me!), and he came
to beg his assistance. The truth was, that three bull elephants such as
no man ever saw had for years been the terror of their kraal, which was
but a small place—a cattle kraal of the great chief Wambe’s, where they
lived to keep the cattle. And now of late these elephants had done them
much damage; but last night they had destroyed a whole patch of mealie
land, and he feared that if they came back they would all starve next
season for want of food. Would the mighty white man then be pleased to
come and kill the elephants? It would be easy for him to do—oh, most
easy! It was only necessary that he should hide himself in a tree, for
there was a full moon, and then when the elephants appeared he would
speak to them with the gun, and they would fall down dead, and there
would be an end of their troubling.
“Of course I hummed and hawed, and made a great favour of consenting to
his proposal, though really I was delighted to have such a chance. One
of the conditions that I made was that a messenger should at once be
despatched to Wambe, whose kraal was two days’ journey from where I
was, telling him that I proposed to come and pay my respects to him in
a few days, and to ask his formal permission to shoot in his country.
Also I intimated that I was prepared to present him with ‘hongo,’ that
is, blackmail, and that I hoped to do a little trade with him in ivory,
of which I heard he had a great quantity.
“This message the old gentleman promised to despatch at once, though
there was something about his manner which showed me that he was
doubtful as to how it would be received. After that we struck our camp
and moved on to the kraal, which we reached about an hour before
sunset. This kraal was a collection of huts surrounded by a slight
thorn-fence, perhaps there were ten of them in all. It was situated in
a kloof of the mountain down which a rivulet flowed. The kloof was
densely wooded, but for some distance above the kraal it was free from
bush, and here on the rich deep ground brought down by the rivulet were
the cultivated lands, in extent somewhere about twenty or twenty-five
acres. On the kraal side of these lands stood a single hut, that served
for a mealie store, which at the moment was used as a dwelling-place by
an old woman, the first wife of our friend the head man.
“It appears that this lady, having had some difference of opinion with
her husband about the extent of authority allowed to a younger and more
amiable wife, had refused to dwell in the kraal any more, and, by way
of marking her displeasure, had taken up her abode among the mealies.
As the issue will show, she was, it happened, cutting off her nose to
spite her face.
“Close by this hut grew a large baobab tree. A glance at the mealie
grounds showed me that the old head man had not exaggerated the
mischief done by the elephants to his crops, which were now getting
ripe. Nearly half of the entire patch was destroyed. The great brutes
had eaten all they could, and the rest they had trampled down. I went
up to their spoor and started back in amazement—never had I seen such a
spoor before. It was simply enormous, more especially that of one old
bull, that carried, so said the natives, but a single tusk. One might
have used any of the footprints for a hip-bath.
“Having taken stock of the position, my next step was to make
arrangements for the fray. The three bulls, according to the natives,
had been spoored into the dense patch of bush above the kloof. Now it
seemed to me very probable that they would return to-night to feed on
the remainder of the ripening mealies. If so, there was a bright moon,
and it struck me that by the exercise of a little ingenuity I might bag
one or more of them without exposing myself to any risk, which, having
the highest respect for the aggressive powers of bull elephants, was a
great consideration to me.
“This then was my plan. To the right of the huts as you look up the
kloof, and commanding the mealie lands, stands the baobab tree that I
have mentioned. Into that baobab tree I made up my mind to go. Then if
the elephants appeared I should get a shot at them. I announced my
intentions to the head man of the kraal, who was delighted. ‘Now,’ he
said, ‘his people might sleep in peace, for while the mighty white
hunter sat aloft like a spirit watching over the welfare of his kraal
what was there to fear?’
“I told him that he was an ungrateful brute to think of sleeping in
peace while, perched like a wounded vulture on a tree, I watched for
his welfare in wakeful sorrow; and once more he collapsed, and owned
that my words were ‘sharp but just.’
“However, as I have said, confidence was completely restored; and that
evening everybody in the kraal, including the superannuated victim of
jealousy in the little hut where the mealie cobs were stored, went to
bed with a sense of sweet security from elephants and all other animals
that prowl by night.
“For my part, I pitched my camp below the kraal; and then, having
procured a beam of wood from the head man—rather a rotten one, by the
way—I set it across two boughs that ran out laterally from the baobab
tree, at a height of about twenty-five feet from the ground, in such
fashion that I and another man could sit upon it with our legs hanging
down, and rest our backs against the bole of the tree. This done I went
back to the camp and ate my supper. About nine o’clock, half-an-hour
before the moon-rise, I summoned Gobo, who, thinking that he had seen
about enough of the delights of big game hunting for that day, did not
altogether relish the job; and, despite his remonstrances, gave him my
eight-bore to carry, I having the .570-express. Then we set out for the
tree. It was very dark, but we found it without difficulty, though
climbing it was a more complicated matter. However, at last we got up
and sat down, like two little boys on a form that is too high for them,
and waited. I did not dare to smoke, because I remembered the
rhinoceros, and feared that the elephants might wind the tobacco if
they should come my way, and this made the business more wearisome, so
I fell to thinking and wondering at the completeness of the silence.
“At last the moon came up, and with it a moaning wind, at the breath of
which the silence began to whisper mysteriously. Lonely enough in the
newborn light looked the wide expanse of mountain, plain, and forest,
more like some vision of a dream, some reflection from a fair world of
peace beyond our ken, than the mere face of garish earth made soft with
sleep. Indeed, had it not been for the fact that I was beginning to
find the log on which I sat very hard, I should have grown quite
sentimental over the beautiful sight; but I will defy anybody to become
sentimental when seated in the damp, on a very rough beam of wood, and
half-way up a tree. So I merely made a mental note that it was a
particularly lovely night, and turned my attention to the prospect of
elephants. But no elephants came, and after waiting for another hour or
so, I think that what between weariness and disgust, I must have
dropped into a gentle doze. Presently I awoke with a start. Gobo, who
was perched close to me, but as far off as the beam would allow—for
neither white man nor black like the aroma which each vows is the
peculiar and disagreeable property of the other—was faintly, very
faintly clicking his forefinger against his thumb. I knew by this
signal, a very favourite one among native hunters and gun-bearers, that
he must have seen or heard something. I looked at his face, and saw
that he was staring excitedly towards the dim edge of the bush beyond
the deep green line of mealies. I stared too, and listened. Presently I
heard a soft large sound as though a giant were gently stretching out
his hands and pressing back the ears of standing corn. Then came a
pause, and then, out into the open majestically stalked the largest
elephant I ever saw or ever shall see. Heavens! what a monster he was;
and how the moonlight gleamed upon his one splendid tusk—for the other
was missing—as he stood among the mealies gently moving his enormous
ears to and fro, and testing the wind with his trunk. While I was still
marvelling at his girth, and speculating upon the weight of that huge
tusk, which I swore should be my tusk before very long, out stepped a
second bull and stood beside him. He was not quite so tall, but he
seemed to me to be almost thicker-set than the first; and even in that
light I could see that both his tusks were perfect. Another pause, and
the third emerged. He was shorter than either of the others, but higher
in the shoulder than No. 2; and when I tell you, as I afterwards learnt
from actual measurement, that the smallest of these mighty bulls
measured twelve feet one and a half inches at the shoulder, it will
give you some idea of their size. The three formed into line and stood
still for a minute, the one-tusked bull gently caressing the elephant
on the left with his trunk.
“Then they began to feed, walking forward and slightly to the right as
they gathered great bunches of the sweet mealies and thrust them into
their mouths. All this time they were more than a hundred and twenty
yards away from me (this I knew, because I had paced the distances from
the tree to various points), much too far to allow of my attempting a
shot at them in that uncertain light. They fed in a semicircle,
gradually drawing round towards the hut near my tree, in which the corn
was stored and the old woman slept.
“This went on for between an hour and an hour and a half, till, what
between excitement and hope, that maketh the heart sick, I grew so
weary that I was actually contemplating a descent from the tree and a
moonlight stalk. Such an act in ground so open would have been that of
a stark staring lunatic, and that I should even have been contemplating
it will show you the condition of my mind. But everything comes to him
who knows how to wait, and sometimes too to him who doesn’t, and so at
last those elephants, or rather one of them, came to me.
“After they had fed their fill, which was a very large one, the noble
three stood once more in line some seventy yards to the left of the
hut, and on the edge of the cultivated lands, or in all about
eighty-five yards from where I was perched. Then at last the one with a
single tusk made a peculiar rattling noise in his trunk, just as though
he were blowing his nose, and without more ado began to walk
deliberately toward the hut where the old woman slept. I made my rifle
ready and glanced up at the moon, only to discover that a new
complication was looming in the immediate future. I have said that a
wind rose with the moon. Well, the wind brought rain-clouds along its
track. Several light ones had already lessened the light for a little
while, though without obscuring it, and now two more were coming up
rapidly, both of them very black and dense. The first cloud was small
and long, and the one behind big and broad. I remember noticing that
the pair of them bore a most comical resemblance to a dray drawn by a
very long raw-boned horse. As luck would have it, just as the elephant
arrived within twenty-five yards or so of me, the head of the
horse-cloud floated over the face of the moon, rendering it impossible
for me to fire. In the faint twilight which remained, however, I could
just make out the gray mass of the great brute still advancing towards
the hut. Then the light went altogether and I had to trust to my ears.
I heard him fumbling with his trunk, apparently at the roof of the hut;
next came a sound as of straw being drawn out, and then for a little
while there was complete silence.
“The cloud began to pass; I could see the outline of the elephant; he
was standing with his head quite over the top of the hut. But I could
not see his trunk, and no wonder, for it was _inside the hut_. He had
thrust it through the roof, and, attracted no doubt by the smell of the
mealies, was groping about with it inside. It was growing light now,
and I got my rifle ready, when suddenly there was a most awful yell,
and I saw the trunk reappear, and in its mighty fold the old woman who
had been sleeping in the hut. Out she came through the hole like a
periwinkle on the point of a pin, still wrapped up in her blanket, and
with her skinny arms and legs stretched to the four points of the
compass, and as she did so, gave that most alarming screech. I really
don’t know who was the most frightened, she, or I, or the elephant. At
any rate the last was considerably startled; he had been fishing for
mealies—the old woman was a mere accident, and one that greatly
discomposed his nerves. He gave a sort of trumpet, and threw her away
from him right into the crown of a low mimosa tree, where she stuck
shrieking like a metropolitan engine. The old bull lifted his tail, and
flapping his great ears prepared for flight. I put up my eight-bore,
and aiming hastily at the point of his shoulder (for he was broadside
on), I fired. The report rang out like thunder, making a thousand
echoes in the quiet hills. I saw him go down all of a heap as though he
were stone dead. Then, alas! whether it was the kick of the heavy
rifle, or the excited bump of that idiot Gobo, or both together, or
merely an unhappy coincidence, I do not know, but the rotten beam broke
and I went down too, landing flat at the foot of the tree upon a
certain humble portion of the human frame. The shock was so severe that
I felt as though all my teeth were flying through the roof of my mouth,
but although I sat slightly stunned for a few seconds, luckily for me I
fell light, and was not in any way injured.
“Meanwhile the elephant began to scream with fear and fury, and,
attracted by his cries, the other two charged up. I felt for my rifle;
it was not there. Then I remembered that I had rested it on a fork of
the bough in order to fire, and doubtless there it remained. My
position was now very unpleasant. I did not dare to try and climb the
tree again, which, shaken as I was, would have been a task of some
difficulty, because the elephants would certainly see me, and Gobo, who
had clung to a bough, was still aloft with the other rifle. I could not
run because there was no shelter near. Under these circumstances I did
the only thing feasible, clambered round the trunk as softly as
possible, and keeping one eye on the elephants, whispered to Gobo to
bring down the rifle, and awaited the development of the situation. I
knew that if the elephants did not see me—which, luckily, they were too
enraged to do—they would not smell me, for I was up-wind. Gobo,
however, either did not, or, preferring the safety of the tree, would
not hear me. He said the former, but I believed the latter, for I knew
that he was not enough of a sportsman to really enjoy shooting
elephants by moonlight in the open. So there I was behind my tree,
dismayed, unarmed, but highly interested, for I was witnessing a
remarkable performance.
“When the two other bulls arrived the wounded elephant on the ground
ceased to scream, but began to make a low moaning noise, and to gently
touch the wound near his shoulder, from which the blood was literally
spouting. The other two seemed to understand; at any rate, they did
this. Kneeling down on either side, they placed their trunks and tusks
underneath him, and, aided by his own efforts, with one great lift got
him on to his feet. Then leaning against him on either side to support
him, they marched off at a walk in the direction of the village.[*] It
was a pitiful sight, and even then it made me feel a brute.
[*] The Editor would have been inclined to think that in relating this
incident Mr. Quatermain was making himself interesting at the expense
of the exact truth, did it not happen that a similar incident has come
within his knowledge.—Editor.
“Presently, from a walk, as the wounded elephant gathered himself
together a little, they broke into a trot, and after that I could
follow them no longer with my eyes, for the second black cloud came up
over the moon and put her out, as an extinguisher puts out a dip. I say
with my eyes, but my ears gave me a very fair notion of what was going
on. When the cloud came up the three terrified animals were heading
directly for the kraal, probably because the way was open and the path
easy. I fancy that they grew confused in the darkness, for when they
came to the kraal fence they did not turn aside, but crashed straight
through it. Then there were ‘times,’ as the Irish servant-girl says in
the American book. Having taken the fence, they thought that they might
as well take the kraal also, so they just ran over it. One hive-shaped
hut was turned quite over on to its top, and when I arrived upon the
scene the people who had been sleeping there were bumbling about inside
like bees disturbed at night, while two more were crushed flat, and a
third had all its side torn out. Oddly enough, however, nobody was
hurt, though several people had a narrow escape of being trodden to
death.
“On arrival I found the old head man in a state painfully like that
favoured by Greek art, dancing about in front of his ruined abodes as
vigorously as though he had just been stung by a scorpion.
“I asked him what ailed him, and he burst out into a flood of abuse. He
called me a Wizard, a Sham, a Fraud, a Bringer of bad luck! I had
promised to kill the elephants, and I had so arranged things that the
elephants had nearly killed him, etc.
“This, still smarting, or rather aching, as I was from that most
terrific bump, was too much for my feelings, so I just made a rush at
my friend, and getting him by the ear, I banged his head against the
doorway of his own hut, which was all that was left of it.
“‘You wicked old scoundrel,’ I said, ‘you dare to complain about your
own trifling inconveniences, when you gave me a rotten beam to sit on,
and thereby delivered me to the fury of the elephant’ (_bump! bump!
bump!_), ‘when your own wife’ (_bump!_) ‘has just been dragged out of
her hut’ (_bump!_) ‘like a snail from its shell, and thrown by the
Earth-shaker into a tree’ (_bump! bump!_).
“‘Mercy, my father, mercy!’ gasped the old fellow. ‘Truly I have done
amiss—my heart tells me so.’
“‘I should hope it did, you old villain’ (_bump!_).
“‘Mercy, great white man! I thought the log was sound. But what says
the unequalled chief—is the old woman, my wife, indeed dead? Ah, if she
is dead all may yet prove to have been for the very best;’ and he
clasped his hands and looked up piously to heaven, in which the moon
was once more shining brightly.
“I let go his ear and burst out laughing, the whole scene and his
devout aspirations for the decease of the partner of his joys, or
rather woes, were so intensely ridiculous.
“‘No, you old iniquity,’ I answered; ‘I left her in the top of a
thorn-tree, screaming like a thousand bluejays. The elephant put her
there.’
“‘Alas! alas!’ he said, ‘surely the back of the ox is shaped to the
burden. Doubtless, my father, she will come down when she is tired;’
and without troubling himself further about the matter, he began to
blow at the smouldering embers of the fire.
“And, as a matter of fact, she did appear a few minutes later,
considerably scratched and startled, but none the worse.
“After that I made my way to my little camp, which, fortunately, the
elephants had not walked over, and wrapping myself up in a blanket, was
soon fast asleep.
“And so ended my first round with those three elephants.”