HARRY'S SHOT--HIS TRACKER'S PREDICAMENT--AFTER
HIPPOPOTAMI--ELEPHANTS AGAIN.
Harry concluded to wait; and, sure enough, the elephant came back, as
the tracker predicted. He paused again at the edge of the forest,
and then came out and proceeded at a rapid walk along the path.
Harry raised his rifle and fired at the vulnerable spot, just between
the eye and ear. He wounded the elephant, but did not bring him
down, and then the animal turned and charged upon him, elevating his
trunk and giving a vicious roar as he ran upon his antagonist.
Harry took advantage of the tree in the same way that I had done;
and, according to his account, his antics were very much like mine,
which the reader already knows about. The tracker climbed into the
limbs of a small tree close by, thinking that there would be a place
of safety. The elephant saw him ascending the tree, and abandoned
the chase for Harry, in the hope of capturing the tracker.
He got under the tracker's tree just as the latter was a foot or so
beyond the reaching-point. Had the elephant been five seconds
earlier he could have seized the tracker with his trunk and dragged
him to the ground. Failing in this, he determined to shake the man
down.
Stepping back eight or ten feet, the brute ran at the tree with the
force of a battering-ram. The tracker--a lithe and active
Kafir--knew that his safety and life depended upon clinging to the
tree, and he hung to it, as the sailors say, "enough to squeeze the
tar out of the rigging."
Three times the elephant butted at that tree, and while he was doing
so Harry was making a diversion on which the infuriated animal had
not counted. With his rifle at full cock, and taking advantage of
the shelter afforded by a few bushes, Harry crept around until he had
the elephant broadside on and not more than twelve yards distant; he
gave him a second and a third shot in his most vulnerable points.
The animal abandoned his tree-shaking and started again in pursuit of
Harry. He took only three or four steps, however, before pausing,
trembling, and then falling dead to the ground.
Then we came around to where Jack had been stationed. He had also
killed his elephant, but, unfortunately, the animal was a young one.
It was a tusker, it is true, but the tusks were small, as was also
the elephant.
"As for a story," said Jack, "I'm like the needy knife-grinder: I've
none to tell. This little fellow came along, and I shot him; and
that's all there is about it."
"Well, if that's all about it," said I, "we'll go back to camp and
send the men out to bring in the tusks. It's a good morning's work
all around, and we ought to be satisfied with it."
By the time we got back to camp it was past noon, and we were,
literally, hungry as hunters. The cook was ready for us with a
dinner of gemsbok-steak and stewed rhinoceros. Rhinoceros is not by
any means a bad dish, and many is the meal I have made of it. You
can have it in a steak, a roast, or a stew. I think it goes best in
a stew; but there is a difference of opinion on that point, just as
there is in everything else in the cooking line. A young elephant is
not at all bad eating, and elephants' feet, no matter whether the
animal be young or old, are one of the delicacies of Africa.
To cook an elephant's foot, and do it properly, requires time and
attention. First get your foot. Then dig a hole in the ground and
build a fire over it; keep this fire going for two or three hours,
until you have got the ground hot all around, and the hole is filled
with coals and glowing ashes. Then throw your elephant's foot into
the hole, covering it over with the hot ashes and embers, and build
more fire over it. It will take from one hour to five or six hours
to cook the foot, depending upon its size and the extent and heat of
the fire. When you think it is done let it stay a little longer--say
half an hour--then rake it out of the ashes, and after letting it
cool enough so that you can handle it, serve it up. It will be found
to be a delicious semi-gelatinous mass, suggesting broiled pigs'
feet, but as much better than that commonplace dish as the elephant
is nobler and larger than our bristly friend of the pigsty.
While at dinner we discussed various things to do in the afternoon,
but found that all were sufficiently weary after the morning's work
to be willing to keep quiet the rest of the day. At the same time we
wanted to do something, and so it was proposed that we go down to the
river--about two miles--and try for a hippopotamus. The hippo is a
difficult beast to shoot, as he sticks pretty closely to the water,
and it is very unusual to find him on land. The time he spends out
of the water is nearly always at night. The natives take advantage
of this peculiarity of the beast, and make traps and pitfalls for
him; and that reminds me that I came very near getting my death-blow
from a hippopotamus-trap, one afternoon, while I was walking along a
path near the river-bank. This is the way the thing was rigged:
An iron spear was stuck in the end of a heavy stick of wood; and as
if the weight of the stick was not enough, some heavy stones were
tied on each side of it, close to the end. This spear was suspended,
with the point downward, right above a path which the hippopotamus
followed on the way from the river to his feeding-ground. The cord
by which the spear was suspended was carried over the limb of a tree
and then down to the ground, where it was fastened to a trigger.
This trigger was connected with a cord that extended across the path.
Now, a hippopotamus, in coming along the path, does not try to step
over the cord, but pushes his clumsy feet against it. In the first
place, he is taking his walk at night, and cannot see the cord; and
even if he could see it his legs are too short to allow him to step
over it. So he just shuffles along, pushes against it, releases the
trigger, and if the trap has been properly arranged the spear comes
down directly between his shoulders; his spine is pretty certainly
cut in two, and if he is not killed outright he is unable to leave
the spot. The natives find him in the morning, and despatch him very
quickly if any life remains.
I had heard about these traps before I came into the hippopotamus
region, but had forgotten all about them, when one day I was walking
along a path and came to a cord just such as I have described. It
was rather high for me to step over, and the thought occurred to me
that somebody must have lost a piece of cord there and I had better
pick it up. I was extending my hand to take hold of it when I
happened to look upward, and saw, directly above me, the weighted
spear, ready to fall the instant the trigger was disturbed! I backed
away from the spot very quickly, and took a course around the trap
instead of venturing farther along the path.
Harry and Jack were ready for the hippopotamus-hunt before I was, and
they started off, I agreeing to follow. They had previously sent
away a dozen or more natives--some of them our own men, and others
picked up in the vicinity--to prepare the raft necessary for a raid
upon the amphibious brutes. It is better to shoot them from a raft
of reeds--which can be constructed in a few minutes--than to shoot
them from a boat. They can overturn a boat and make it decidedly
nasty for the occupants; it is true they can shake up a raft
somewhat, but they cannot overturn it or sink it anywhere near as
easily as they can a boat.
My friends had been gone ten or fifteen minutes, and I was just
getting ready to start, when Mirogo, my elephant-tracker, came
rushing in, and said there were elephants back in the forest where we
had shot them in the morning.
Here was a temptation that I could not well resist. Elephants are
bigger game than hippopotami, and there is a great deal more glory,
and also a good deal more risk, in shooting them. I started a man
off to tell Harry and Jack to go ahead with their fun and not wait
for me, and also to inform them as to the cause of my detention.
Well, we went after the elephants--Mirogo, Kalil, and I. This time I
put my large cartridge-belt around my waist--I had worn my small one
before--and as we neared the forest I filled it with cartridges from
the supply which Kalil carried.
Mirogo had left a native to keep an eye on the movements of the herd,
and as we approached the forest the man met us and guided us on our
course. The herd was considerably farther to the west than the one
of the morning, and as it had not been alarmed in any way it was
supposed not to be the one whose numbers we had reduced with our
rifles.
The locality which the new herd had sought was not at all to my
liking, as the ground at the edge of the forest was covered with
wait-a-bit thorn-bushes; and the reader will allow me to remark that
the wait-a-bit thorn is one of the most aggravating things which the
African continent produces. I do not know who gave this bush its
name, but he was certainly somebody with a practical turn of mind.
The wait-a-bit thorn is barbed like a fish-hook, and whenever you get
into one of the bushes you cannot get out in a hurry; as fast as you
release one piece of your clothing another gets entangled, and very
often the stranger leaves the greater part of his wardrobe in the
possession of the bush. This is particularly the case when he
happens to be in a hurry; when an elephant, buffalo, lion, or other
savage beast is charging upon a hunter, and a wait-a-bit thorn-bush
stands in the way, the hunter has many lacerations, both of clothing
and flesh, in order to escape. The natives treat one of these bushes
with the greatest respect. Jack suggested one day that the natives
went naked because they could not afford to supply thorn-bushes with
clothing.
We outflanked those wait-a-bits and moved into the forest, where
there were no worse things than creepers. Every few minutes we
paused to listen, and before a great while we heard the elephants
breaking branches, and evidently feeding leisurely. Mirogo led the
way, and I followed, with Kalil close at my heels, carrying my gun.
We had got quite close to the herd, whose size we could not make out,
though Mirogo thought there were not fewer than half a dozen
elephants in it.
We were about a hundred yards away--perhaps a hundred and fifty--when
the elephants paused in their feeding and began to snort uneasily.
Mirogo fell back to me, and whispered that he thought something was
disturbing them on the other side. It was evident we had not
disturbed them, as the little wind there was blew from them to us. I
concluded that it was a rhinoceros, or perhaps a buffalo, which was
beyond them.
The elephant is not friendly to either of those animals, and he is
especially hostile to the rhinoceros. When two of those creatures
meet face to face there is pretty sure to be a fight. They do not
exactly go around hunting for an encounter, but they do not, on the
other hand, make any great effort to avoid one. They are terrible
antagonists, the horn of the rhinoceros doing fearful work in ripping
up the elephant, while, on the other hand, the elephant's tusks are
apt to make deep perforations in the thick skin of the rhinoceros.
The crashing in the woods sounded nearer, and the character of it
showed that the animals had stopped feeding and were moving toward
us. I seized my gun and got ready for work; and I was not a moment
too soon in doing so. A stately bull-elephant appeared, walking
slowly, head on, in my direction. I was screened from him behind a
tree, and the course that he was taking cut me off from anything but
a shot directly at the forehead. He was within twenty yards of where
I stood, and had not perceived me. Mirogo was off at one side, and
Kalil was crouched flat to the ground directly behind me.