In the review of “first” impressions with which we are concerned, we
must now skip a week or ten days to stop at what is known in our diaries
as the First Ford of the Guaso Nyero River.
These ten days were not uneventful. We had crossed the wide and
undulating plains, had paused at some tall beautiful falls plunging
several hundred feet into the mysteriousness of a dense forest on
which we looked down. There we had enjoyed some duck, goose and snipe
shooting; had made the acquaintance of a few of the Masai, and had
looked with awe on our first hippo tracks in the mud beside a tiny
ditchlike stream. Here and there were small game herds. In the light of
later experience we now realize that these were nothing at all; but at
the time the sight of full-grown wild animals out in plain sight was
quite wonderful. At the close of the day's march we always wandered out
with our rifles to see what we could find. Everything was new to us,
and we had our men to feed. Our shooting gradually improved until we had
overcome the difficulties peculiar to this new country and were doing as
well as we could do anywhere.
Now, at the end of a hard day through scrub, over rolling bold hills,
and down a scrub brush slope, we had reached the banks of the Guaso
Nyero.
At this point, above the junction of its principal tributary rivers,
it was a stream about sixty or seventy feet wide, flowing swift between
high banks. A few trees marked its course, but nothing like a jungle.
The ford was in swift water just above a deep still pool suspected
of crocodiles. We found the water about waist deep, stretched a rope
across, and forcibly persuaded our eager boys that one at a time was
about what the situation required. On the other side we made camp on
an open flat. Having marched so far continuously, we resolved to settle
down for a while. The men had been without sufficient meat; and we
desired very much to look over the country closely, and to collect a few
heads as trophies.
Perhaps a word might not come amiss as to the killing of game. The case
is here quite different from the condition of affairs at home. Here
animal life is most extraordinarily abundant; it furnishes the main food
supply to the traveller; and at present is probably increasing slightly,
certainly holding its own. Whatever toll the sportsman or traveller take
is as nothing compared to what he might take if he were an unscrupulous
game hog. If his cartridges and his shoulder held out, he could easily
kill a hundred animals a day instead of the few he requires. In that
sense, then, no man slaughters indiscriminately. During the course of
a year he probably shoots from two hundred to two hundred and fifty
beasts, provided he is travelling with an ordinary sized caravan. This,
the experts say, is about the annual toll of one lion. If the traveller
gets his lion, he plays even with the fauna of the country; if he
gets two or more lions, he has something to his credit. This probably
explains why the game is still so remarkably abundant near the road and
on the very outskirts of the town.
We were now much in need of a fair quantity of meat, both for immediate
consumption of our safari, and to make biltong or jerky. Later, in like
circumstances, we should have sallied forth in a businesslike fashion,
dropped the requisite number of zebra and hartebeeste as near camp as
possible, and called it a job. Now, however, being new to the game, we
much desired good trophies in variety. Therefore, we scoured the
country far and wide for desirable heads; and the meat waited upon the
acquisition of the trophy.
This, then, might be called our first Shooting Camp. Heretofore we had
travelled every day. Now the boys settled down to what the native porter
considers the height of bliss: a permanent camp with plenty to eat. Each
morning we were off before daylight, riding our horses, and followed by
the gunbearers, the syces, and fifteen or twenty porters. The country
rose from the river in a long gentle slope grown with low brush and
scattered candlestick euphorbias. This slope ended in a scattered range
of low rocky buttes. Through any one of the various openings between
them, we rode to find ourselves on the borders of an undulating grass
country of low rounded hills with wide valleys winding between them. In
these valleys and on these hills was the game.
Daylight of the day I would tell about found us just at the edge of the
little buttes. Down one of the slopes the growing half light revealed
two oryx feeding, magnificent big creatures, with straight rapier horns
three feet in length. These were most exciting and desirable, so off
my horse I got and began to sneak up on them through the low tufts
of grass. They fed quite calmly. I congratulated myself, and slipped
nearer. Without even looking in my direction, they trotted away.
Somewhat chagrined, I returned to my companions, and we rode on.
Then across a mile-wide valley we saw two dark objects in the tall
grass; and almost immediately identified these as rhinoceroses, the
first we had seen. They stood there side by side, gazing off into space,
doing nothing in a busy morning world. After staring at them through our
glasses for some time, we organized a raid. At the bottom of the valley
we left the horses and porters; lined up, each with his gunbearer at his
elbow; and advanced on the enemy. B. was to have the shot According to
all the books we should have been able, provided we were downwind
and made no noise, to have approached within fifty or sixty yards
undiscovered. However, at a little over a hundred yards they both turned
tail and departed at a swift trot, their heads held well up and their
tails sticking up straight and stiff in the most ridiculous fashion.
No good shooting at them in such circumstances, so we watched them go,
still keeping up their slashing trot, growing smaller and smaller in the
distance until finally they disappeared over the top of a swell.
We set ourselves methodically to following them. It took us over an hour
of steady plodding before we again came in sight of them. They were this
time nearer the top of a hill, and we saw instantly that the curve of
the slope was such that we could approach within fifty yards before
coming in sight at all. Therefore, once more we dismounted, lined up in
battle array, and advanced.
Sensations? Distinctly nervous, decidedly alert, and somewhat
self-congratulatory that I was not more scared. No man can predicate how
efficient he is going to be in the presence of really dangerous game.
Only the actual trial will show. This is not a question of courage at
all, but of purely involuntary reaction of the nerves. Very few men are
physical cowards. They will and do face anything. But a great many men
are rendered inefficient by the way their nervous systems act under
stress. It is not a matter for control by will power in the slightest
degree. So the big game hunter must determine by actual trial whether it
so happens that the great excitement of danger renders his hand shaky or
steady. The excitement in either case is the same. No man is ever “cool”
in the sense that personal danger is of the same kind of indifference
to him as clambering aboard a street car. He must always be lifted
above himself, must enter an extra normal condition to meet extra normal
circumstances. He can always control his conduct; but he can by no
means always determine the way the inevitable excitement will affect his
coordinations. And unfortunately, in the final result it does not matter
how brave a man is, but how closely he can hold. If he finds that his
nervous excitement renders him unsteady, he has no business ever to
tackle dangerous game alone. If, on the other hand, he discovers that
IDENTICALLY THE SAME nervous excitement happens to steady his front
sight to rocklike rigidity-a rigidity he could not possibly attain in
normal conditions-then he will probably keep out of trouble.
To amplify this further by a specific instance: I hunted for a short
time in Africa with a man who was always eager for exciting encounters,
whose pluck was admirable in every way, but whose nervous reaction so
manifested itself that he was utterly unable to do even decent shooting
at any range. Furthermore, his very judgment and power of observation
were so obscured that he could not remember afterward with any accuracy
what had happened-which way the beast was pointing, how many there were
of them, in which direction they went, how many shots were fired, in
short all the smaller details of the affair. He thought he remembered.
After the show was over it was quite amusing to get his version of
the incident. It was almost always so wide of the fact as to be little
recognizable. And, mind you, he was perfectly sincere in his belief, and
absolutely courageous. Only he was quite unfitted by physical make-up
for a big game hunter; and I was relieved when, after a short time, his
route and mine separated.
Well, we clambered up that slope with a fine compound of tension,
expectation, and latent uneasiness as to just what was going to happen,
anyway. Finally, we raised the backs of the beasts, stooped, sneaked a
little nearer, and finally at a signal stood upright perhaps forty yards
from the brutes.
For the first time I experienced a sensation I was destined many times
to repeat-that of the sheer size of the animals. Menagerie rhinoceroses
had been of the smaller Indian variety; and in any case most menagerie
beasts are more or less stunted. These two, facing us, their little eyes
blinking, looked like full-grown ironclads on dry land. The moment we
stood erect B. fired at the larger of the two. Instantly they turned and
were off at a tearing run. I opened fire, and B. let loose his second
barrel. At about two hundred and fifty yards the big rhinoceros suddenly
fell on his side, while the other continued his flight. It was all
over-very exciting because we got excited, but not in the least
dangerous.
The boys were delighted, for here was meat in plenty for everybody. We
measured the beast, photographed him, marvelled at his immense size, and
turned him over to the gunbearers for treatment. In half an hour or so a
long string of porters headed across the hills in the direction of
camp, many miles distant, each carrying his load either of meat, or the
trophies. Rhinoceros hide, properly treated, becomes as transparent as
amber, and so from it can be made many very beautiful souvenirs, such as
bowls, trays, paper knives, table tops, whips, canes, and the like.
And, of course, the feet of one's first rhino are always saved for cigar
boxes or inkstands.
Already we had an admiring and impatient audience. From all directions
came the carrion birds. They circled far up in the heavens; they shot
downward like plummets from a great height with an inspiring roar of
wings; they stood thick in a solemn circle all around the scene of the
kill; they rose with a heavy flapping when we moved in their direction.
Skulking forms flashed in the grass, and occasionally the pointed ears
of a jackal would rise inquiringly.
It was by now nearly noon. The sun shone clear and hot; the heat shimmer
rose in clouds from the brown surface of the hills. In all directions
we could make out small gameherds resting motionless in the heat of the
day, the mirage throwing them into fantastic shapes. While the final
disposition was being made of the defunct rhinoceros I wandered over the
edge of the hill to see what I could see, and fairly blundered on a herd
of oryx at about a hundred and fifty yards range. They looked at me a
startled instant, then leaped away to the left at a tremendous speed.
By a lucky shot, I bowled one over. He was a beautiful beast, with his
black and white face and his straight rapierlike horns nearly three feet
long, and I was most pleased to get him. Memba Sasa came running at the
sound of the shot. We set about preparing the head.
Then through a gap in the hills far to the left we saw a little black
speck moving rapidly in our direction. At the end of a minute we could
make it out as the second rhinoceros. He had run heaven knows how
many miles away, and now he was returning; whether with some idea of
rejoining his companion or from sheer chance, I do not know. At any
rate, here he was, still ploughing along at his swinging trot. His
course led him along a side hill about four hundred yards from where
the oryx lay. When he was directly opposite I took the Springfield and
fired, not at him, but at a spot five or six feet in front of his
nose. The bullet threw up a column of dust. Rhino brought up short with
astonishment, wheeled to the left, and made off at a gallop. I dropped
another bullet in front of him. Again he stopped, changed direction, and
made off. For the third time I hit the ground in front of him. Then he
got angry, put his head down and charged the spot.
Five more shots I expended on the amusement of that rhinoceros; and
at the last had run furiously charging back and forth in a twenty-yard
space, very angry at the little puffing, screeching bullets, but quite
unable to catch one. Then he made up his mind and departed the way he
had come, finally disappearing as a little rapidly moving black speck
through the gap in the hills where we had first caught sight of him.
We finished caring for the oryx, and returned to camp. To our surprise
we found we were at least seven or eight miles out.
In this fashion days passed very quickly. The early dewy start in the
cool of the morning, the gradual grateful warming up of sunrise, and
immediately after, the rest during the midday heats under a shady tree,
the long trek back to camp at sunset, the hot bath after the toilsome
day-all these were very pleasant. Then the swift falling night, and the
gleam of many tiny fires springing up out of the darkness; with each its
sticks full of meat roasting, and its little circle of men, their skins
gleaming in the light. As we sat smoking, we would become aware that
M'ganga, the headman, was standing silent awaiting orders. Some one
would happen to see the white of his eyes, or perhaps he might smile so
that his teeth would become visible. Otherwise he might stand there an
hour, and no one the wiser, for he was respectfully silent, and exactly
the colour of the night.
We would indicate to him our plans for the morrow, and he would
disappear. Then at a distance of twenty or thirty feet from the front
of our tents a tiny tongue of flame would lick up. Dark figures could be
seen manipulating wood. A blazing fire sprang up, against which we could
see the motionless and picturesque figure of Saa-sita (Six o'Clock), the
askari of the first night watch, leaning on his musket. He was a most
picturesque figure, for his fancy ran to original headdresses, and at
the moment he affected a wonderful upstanding structure made of marabout
wings.
At this sign that the night had begun, we turned in. A few hyenas
moaned, a few jackals barked: otherwise the first part of the night was
silent, for the hunters were at their silent business, and the hunted
were “layin' low and sayin' nuffin'.”
Day after day we rode out, exploring the country in different
directions. The great uncertainty as to what of interest we would find
filled the hours with charm. Sometimes we clambered about the cliffs of
the buttes trying to find klipspringers; again we ran miles pursuing the
gigantic eland. I in turn got my first rhinoceros, with no more danger
than had attended the killing of B.'s. On this occasion, however, I had
my first experience of the lightning skill of the first-class gunbearer.
Having fired both barrels, and staggered the beast, I threw open the
breech and withdrew the empty cartridges, intending, of course, as my
next move to fish two more out of my belt. The empty shells were hardly
away from the chambers, however, when a long brown arm shot over
my right shoulder and popped two fresh cartridges in the breech. So
astonished was I at this unexpected apparition, that for a second or so
I actually forgot to close the gun.