```My very friend has got his mortal hurt
```In my behalf, my reputation stain’d
`````Romeo and Juliet=
```A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse,
```Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaubed in blood,
```All in gore blood
`````Romeo and Juliet=
|Very often we made detours from the main caravan, rejoining it at
a given spot, and this spirit of “wanderlust” brought us into a nice
quandary one fine day. Going by the map and guided by the compass,
Clarence was to arrive with the whole outfit at a precise place by
nightfall, and we two, tired of the two-and-a-half miles an hour
pace, did an excursion on sport intent, taking our own way to meet the
caravan. We, with three hunters on the ever-willing ponies, left camp
early, and going easily soon put a good distance between ourselves and
the slow-coach camels. Dik-dik popped up everywhere, but ’twas no
use disturbing the jungle for such small game. Water-holes next loomed
ahead, and into the mud the Somalis precipitated themselves to drink and
dabble. It was really not fit to swallow, and sudden death would seem to
be the probable result. Not at all! It gave a sudden impetus to our men,
who grew quite lively, game for anything, as they chanted invitations to
imaginary animals to come and be shot. All the song was of the “Dilly,
Dilly, come and get killed” pattern, and was for the most part addressed
to a rhinoceros who lived in fancy. “Wiyil, Wiyil, Mem-sahib calls
you,” was the bed-rock of the anthem, and like our home-made variety one
sentence had to go a long way.
We found a track made by tortoises innumerable who evidently marched in
solid phalanx to the water-holes. We followed the trail for a long
way, but it seemed to be taking us to a Never-never land, so we turned,
giving up the idea of discovering the source of the path. But in a
tiny lake, as big as a bath and as shallow, we came on three tortoises
swimming. They drew in their ugly snake-like heads with a sideway motion
beneath their armour-plate residence, and there was nothing left to see
but a flat, dirty, yellow carapace. They were quite small, and we pulled
one out with a deft noose thrown by the second hunter. Each man took off
his turned-up sandals and rested one bare foot at a time on the shelly
back, “to make strong the feet.” They did this very solemnly, and, of
course, in turns, mounting their ponies when the superstitious rite was
well over.
We saw a very immature gerenük standing on his hind legs to feed on the
young tops of a thorn bush. It went off at a crouching trot, stopping
after a short run to turn and stare. It even returned a few paces, with
unparalleled impudence, to gaze. It was a youngster of last season.
The gerenük mother is not the highest type of jungle matron, frequently
abandoning a little one to fend for itself weeks before it has been
taught the ways of the jungle. And so it is that gerenük fawns are a
great mainstay in the lion dietary.
We let our youthful friend investigate us to his liking, after which he
trotted off. Gerenük seldom or never gallop, and get up nothing like the
speed of an oryx for instance.
[Illustration: 0155]
We paused for lunch, and some surprised Midgans were located beneath a
guda tree. Round about them were many fierce and vengeful-looking dogs.
They had a fire over which they were roasting bits of flesh. A few dogs
fought and wrangled over mangled remnants of bone, skin, and entrails.
The horns and shield of an oryx hung on a khansa bush. The horns
were not large, and were those of a cow oryx, killed to make a Midgan
holiday, by the aid of the trained dogs, and with a _coup-de-grâce_
of arrows. I have never seen the actual hunting, but I understand that
these pariah dogs are bred by the Midgans to hunt the oryx, and going
out in a pack make straight for the prey on being shown the antelope.
The music of the chase is noteless. The dogs hunt in silence, until they
bring the antelope to his last stand, when they give tongue, guiding the
tracking Midgans, who steal up, as concealed as may be, and let fly a
flight of arrows which either settles the oryx there and then, or paves
the way for an easy pull down later. Very often the antelope makes such
a glorious stand that a couple of dogs are left on the field of battle
for the hyænas. Though the dogs fasten on to their prey and are fierce
beyond relief an oryx at bay is something to be afraid of. His swift
forward rush, head down, with horns just fixed at the right angle for
impaling an enemy, and sideway strike render him a formidable foe at
close quarters.
The Midgans were very friendly. They were very ragged, and the quivers
full of poisoned arrows hung on quite bare shoulders. They kindly showed
us a track to our betterment, for the going now was stony and difficult.
In and out among rocky nullahs were week-old pugs of lion, and farther,
where rain had fallen, well defined spoor of more lion, together with
massed tracks of oryx and aoul. The spoor of the former is broad in the
forefoot, somewhat resembling two pears set together, and the hind foot
makes a much longer, narrower impress. We followed the rough track for
a mile or more being led to an open “bun,” not extensive, where some few
bunches of aoul grazed and an odd bull oryx also. We got off our ponies,
and making the hunters into _syces pro tem._ did a stalk on all fours.
Cover there was not, and the centre of the “bun” was the centre of
attraction to all the buck, the best grass probably growing there. It
was completely out of reasonable range. A crackle, a rustle, or possibly
a vision gave the alarm, and away went the oryx, out of sight instantly.
The aoul fled affrightedly for a hundred yards or so, then brought up in
a thick bunch to stare. One, inquisitive beyond belief, trotted towards
us, advancing in short bounds in his anxiety to solve the mystery of
these new squirming creatures. Head on, the aoul presented the position
for the most reliable shot possible. A child would have brought it off.
Cecily dropped the inquirer dead in his tracks.
We were very glad of the meat, and the horns were not amiss. The men
would not be able to look forward to a resulting feast, as the “hallal”
was left out. However, they had any amount of sun-dried meat to go
on with. One pony had to carry the buck, which, after being cleaned,
probably weighed less than the Somali who had occupied the saddle
previously. Then we made tracks for the rendezvous. Looking behind us we
saw a large jackal making off with the left-behind bits of aoul. Another
and another came up, and then a set-to fight began as to who should eat
the spoils. Whilst the battle raged with fang and claw a tiny jackal
stealing up made off at best pace with most of the bone of contention.
At the arranged place of meeting we found no hospitably waiting tents,
no cook trying to cook, no camels, no anything, but an arid waste of
sand, sparsely dotted with adad bushes and a couple of very stunted guda
trees. From the adad comes the gum arabic of Somali trading, a useless
commodity to us. But we could see it for ourselves in amber lumps, in
the crannies of the thorn.
Half an hour passed. The ponies nibbled the occasional brown spears
that masqueraded as grass, and we sat down, and said things. One of
the hunters got up a guda tree to help investigations, and we played:
“Sister Ann, Sister Ann, do you see anybody coming?” until we were tired
of it, and the man not being particularly agile missed his footing and
fell with a plop to the ground. After he realised he still lived we had
to listen to his complaints, which embraced everything from petitions to
Allah, allusions to Kismet, to ordinary swear words consigning the tree
and the bruises to altogether impossible places. It grew bitterly cold.
A breeze sprang up and dashed the sand in little sprays about us. Then
it got colder still, and darker; presently night would fall and find us
unprepared. We guarded the ponies, and the men with nothing but a couple
of shikar knives, cut thorn hurriedly, and we could not cry, “Hold,
enough!” until a goodly pile had been collected. We started a fire then
and sat about it holding the ponies by us. A comical group. The fire
warmed us in front, but oh, the cold where the fire was not. I kept
turning round and round like a meat-jack. We sat on like this in great
discomfort until twelve o’clock. We had on drill jackets, so were very
coldly clad. Then--a shot on the silence, cracking suddenly like ice
splitting on a frozen lake. Crack again. We replied; and after a waste
of cartridges on either side a dark mass loomed on our limited horizon,
and the camel-men called words of endearment to the lost hunters. We
were huffy enough to have dismissed the whole caravan and left ourselves
stranded, but feigned to be propitiated by stories of how they lost
their way and the compass, for a Somali will lose, as he can break,
anything. The sight of our tents being erected and the prospect of bed
and warmth mollified us as nothing else could have done, and we turned
in as soon as the cook produced some soup. The men had to collect
wood in the dark--a thing they hate. It was all a gross piece of bad
management on the part of Clarence. Even Homer nods.
As a result of the exposure Cecily contracted rheumatism of some
inflammatory description. We called it rheumatism for want of a better
name, but her illness most coincided with something discussed in our
medical work--our _vade mecum_--and most unfortunately the page was lost
and the name of the complaint, as luck would have it, was on it.
We decided it must be rheumatism and treated it accordingly. The right
arm was rendered quite useless, and it was agony for the poor girl to do
more than crawl about. It was a most irritating affair for her and ever
so disappointing. The best sport of the trip was now at hand. We were
in the rhino country, and at breakfast next morning a Somali hunter rode
in--it is marvellous the way in which these people track caravans and
then seem to drop in from nowhere--and he brought news, great news for
us. Clarence introduced the man, a fine upstanding Berserk, who gazed in
bewilderment at the new type of sporting sahib. A rhinoceros was in the
vicinity, that much we elicited, that much, and enough too. A flowing
tobe was the reward for these tidings of great joy.
Leaving Clarence to glean all particulars, I rushed to Cecily’s tent to
see if she would require me to remain in camp with her. She said, nobly,
“Of course not.” Truth to tell, I don’t think I could have done it had
she asked me to.
I was so overjoyed and excited that I saw to the condition of my rifle
ten times over.
The only animal a Somali really fears is the rhinoceros. His charge,
though so blundering, is so terrific; and though he has not the cunning
of the elephant, in fact hardly any finesse at all, the native mind
knows it is safer to take no chances. I learnt by after experience that
a rhinoceros is, indeed, a very big thing to tackle; that his immense
bulk is no deterrent to nimbleness, that his lumbering, bull-like charge
is not the most he can do, for if needs be he can turn and double with
agility.
As soon as possible after hearing the great news we prepared to try our
luck. The country here was of the densest description, and Clarence’s
idea was to make a detour south, by way of some water-holes, where we
might come on tracks of more rhino. He said the one we had heard of
would probably by now be far away, and, as we were right in the Ogaden,
there was every possibility of our picking up fresh rhino spoor for
ourselves almost immediately. We got ready quite a little expedition,
and I detailed a camel to carry my requirements in case we thought it
better to stay out all night, and with Clarence, the Baron, a syce,
and two camel men my retinue was sufficiently imposing. Danger from the
Ogaden Somalis never presented itself to me as a very real thing,
in spite of certain lurid tales we had heard and read. Although we
penetrated the country from end to end, the few tribes we met gave us
no anxiety save that of the off-chance that we might catch some disease
from them. They are very prone to small-pox, and go on walking about
with it, giving it to all and sundry, when most people would be
isolated.
But to return to that joint of mutton we sat down to. I took a whole
armoury along with me, but had quite selected my 12-bore as the rifle
for the job. I said good-bye to poor disappointed Cecily, thinking
how lucky I was to be well and able to set off on this the greatest
adventure of all my life. I little thought I was nearing one of its
tragedies. As I rode along I felt light-hearted enough to sing. Even
the woeful going and the consequent delays did not seriously vex me. The
sandy plateaus presently changed to the most impossible thorn, and
it became apparent we could get the encumbered camel no farther. The
creature could not struggle on through such dense jungle, neither could
the ponies. I would hear of no going back, and there was no going round,
so I instructed the small caravan to await my reappearance under pain of
all sorts of penalties whilst “the Baron,” myself, and Clarence pushed
and crawled our way in a direction where we confidently hoped to come on
rhino.
I simply held my breath, took a header into the sea of bush before us,
and with the ubiquitous Clarence ever and anon carving out a rough path
for me with his hunting knife, held on the way.
The heat was appalling. I can truthfully say I never was so hot in
all my life. After about an hour of this, we all suddenly came upon a
distinct passage through the jungle, running at right angles, a passage
that could hardly be called one, still the way was easier, and it was
apparent that, though the brushwood had closed together again more or
less, some mighty creatures had passed along. But which way? Spooring
was impossible, the broken thorns could not solve the puzzle. We must
chance it. Clarence was for the left. I advocated the right. Something
made me choose so; but oh, how devoutly afterwards I wished I had taken
the man’s way and not mine own. It was not easy going now, but child’s
play to what we endured at first. On and on, very, very slowly; and
at last the heavy country broke up somewhat and we could see the
sandy ground in patches once more. A space and then--rhino spoor! New,
never-to-be-forgotten, I stooped down and examined it carefully. It was
very distinct considering the dry nature of the ground. I ascribed this
to his immense weight. I measured the imprint, and found it came out at
nine and three-quarters long by eight and three-quarter inches broad. A
rhino causes no havoc to the thorn bushes as he travels bar the injury
of his passage. Unlike the elephant, he does not stop and eat all along
the way. He waits until settled in some cherished feeding ground.
By the time we had done another hour, the spoor still holding on, the
country was comparatively clear. I was so fatigued and winded I lay down
and hardly knew what to do with myself. I sent Clarence and the Baron
on a bit to prospect, and had really nearly forgotten their existence
in exhausted sleep when they appeared again all tingling with excitement
and eagerness, and with many signs and mysterious facial contortions
explained the rhino was not far off. A wave of the hand to a far away
fastness of thicket showed me its lair, and as we crept closer a pensive
munching sound betrayed the occupation of our prey.
Aching all over, I silently crept on. In the stillness I could more
plainly hear the crunching of the thorns as they made a meal for the
great pachyderm. But I _saw_ nothing, and how I was to penetrate the
wait-a-bit with any degree of safety I could not see. Few people would
care to meet a rhinoceros at such disadvantage, and I had to add to
other drawbacks the fact that I had for safety’s sake to let the hammers
of my rifle down ere negotiating such dense undergrowth. It would be
highly dangerous to proceed with the rifle cocked, but I wanted it very
much cocked indeed on my first introduction to so vast and important an
animal. The thing was to circumvent the wood--if I may call the place
by so home-like a word--and on reaching one spot where the thorn grew
sparser, I decided to penetrate here. I could not bear to leave it
longer, and could not wait all day; besides, I prefer to meet a rhino
in some place where there is a pretence at cover anyway to trying
conclusions with him in a patch of conspicuously open ground.
My men showed no sign of fear, and following me came on as carefully and
steadily as ever. Both were armed, inadequately it is to be feared, but
the onus of the business was to fall, presumably, on me. At last! In one
dazzling minute of surprise I saw the huge lumbering bulk we know as
the rhinoceros. I have a bowing acquaintance with his relatives in
many zoos, yet he seemed to me a stranger. Surely they never were so
colossal, so mighty, so altogether awe-inspiring.
My hands trembled violently. I was for the moment unsteady. It all
seemed so impossible I could kill the wondrous brute.
The cocking of the hammers seemed to echo through the jungle. To let
him hear us now would present difficulties unthinkable. Beads of
perspiration rolled down my forehead, and my heart beat so loudly that I
wondered if Clarence heard it. This would never do, so rating myself
to myself--a method that never fails to pull me together--I took long,
steady, and careful aim at the pachyderm’s shoulder. The frontal shot is
never of the slightest use, and I could not get in a heart one. I know
now I had no business to fire at all, but my keenness was great, my
ignorance greater, and Clarence had not protested once.
I fired! Instantly a noise like the letting off steam of a C.P.R.
engine, twice as noisy as any other. The rhino sniffed the air with
his huge muzzle, and I could clearly see his prehensile upper lip. In a
moment he seemed on us--through us; we scattered as he came. Then I saw
what a truly awful business we were in for, and, recognising there
must be no delay in getting the sights on him again, I dashed after the
animal, who was now about to double on his tracks, and I crawled into
the insignificant shelter of a thorn bush to await developments.
The rhino had not as yet realised what was the matter, or quite gathered
who his foes were. I fired again, another shoulder shot. This bullet
“told” heavily, and the maddened creature, smarting and furious, passed
me like the wind and charged like a Juggernaut right over the Baron,
who, in meaning to evade the rush, fell into it through the unexpected
agility of the brute. A most awful stifled shriek arose as my poor
fellow went down. Frightened as I was, I felt I should be everlastingly
branded to myself as a coward if I made no attempt to save the man,
although I understood how altogether impossible salvation was just then.
The pachyderm was giving the prostrate body a number of vicious rams
with his horn. I advanced quite close, and the rhino, seeing me,
blunderingly charged, passing so near I got the very breath from his
nostrils. I luckily managed to get in a heart shot, and yet another. The
animal lurched on, and then fell, as a loaded furniture van might, with
a terrific crash. But it was not entirely accounted for even yet, and
continued to emit little squeals and plough the ground up all about it.
Still, I knew it would rise no more, and I gave my rifle to Clarence
with a sign to him to do the happy despatch. I went to the fallen Baron,
and even now cannot write of the dreadful nature of his wounds without
a shudder at the manner of so hideous a death. I was overwhelmed, but
Clarence was still imperturbable as he looked back from the great mass
that now lay as inert as my poor follower.
There was no use trying anything; the Baron was dead. I did my best to
hide my stress of mind from the calm shikari, and endeavoured to think
what it was best to do. I wanted to have the body taken back to camp and
bury it decently, but, after all, it was a silly idea enough, and a mere
relic of home associations. The man had to _be_ buried, so why not do it
where he fell? Then the rhinoceros, with all its value in hide and horn,
lay there to be dealt with. The only way seemed to be to return to the
spot where we left the camel, let Clarence lead two men to the scene of
the _débâcle_, and then I would proceed to camp and order out further
assistance.
We covered the poor Baron with cut thorns, which seemed a slight barrier
of protection for his body; and the thought of the inroads of some
beasts of prey made me hurry and almost run back through the awful
way we had come so short a time ago. Our passage had cleared it a very
little, and my mind was so much occupied with the catastrophe that it
did not seem very long before we reached the philosophic camel and the
help of which we stood in need.
One camel-man I instructed to return to camp with his charge; the other
and my syce I detailed to go back with Clarence to attend to the Baron
and the rhino. I got on my own pony, leading the others, and going as
hard as I could under such harassing conditions, I returned an hour or
so after with a few men, whom I led to the edge of the thick jungle into
which I heartily wished I had never penetrated, and explained to the
leader the exact location of the scene of the disaster. I arranged that
a rifle should be fired three times to acquaint me of his meeting with
Clarence at the awful spot. For myself, I was too utterly done to take
on the journey down that path again. I sat and waited for the signal,
and felt a little easier in my mind as I heard the welcome one, two,
three.
I wearily returned to camp, and having fully explained to Cecily the
extent of the disaster, lay on my bed, face down, for ages. The death of
the poor hunter could not, strictly speaking, be ascribed to me. I might
so easily have been the victim myself, but the horror of it all and
the pity of it bothered me as I suppose it would not have done a real
sportsman. For, in retailing it now to my uncle, he pooh-poohs my
trouble and says it is the fortune of big game hunting. “You hunt big
game, big game hunt you,” as the case may be.
Cecily tried in her loving way to comfort me, and the cook made me a
soporific in the shape of tea, and the kettle had really boiled. I was
very glad to see Clarence back before the light gave out, and hear that
the Baron had been buried deeply and far out of the reach of hungry
jackals and hyænas.
I spent a fearful night of regrets and recriminations. When pain is
acute it is as well to let it bite deep, because the reaction is greater
in proportion to the pain. I’m not sure that the old adage about crying
over spilt milk isn’t a fraud. It does a woman good to cry, so I wept
and wept.
Next morning I thoroughly overhauled my prize so dearly bought. The
spoil must have taken some carrying. The head, which I kept entire--I
mean without despoiling it of horns--was not so large as I somehow
expected from an animal of his bulk. Still, it was big enough in all
conscience. The skin appeared like some freshly-peeled fruit, and was of
great thickness, though it afterwards shrank in the drying a little.
After the epidermis is removed, the hide, when polished, comes up like
clouded amber, and makes the most exquisite top for a table, of which
the four feet form the base. In my worry at the time I neglected to
measure the rhinoceros as he lay, but in any case we were quite unable
to move him. I afterwards took the dimensions of the horns, and the
length of the anterior was sixteen inches, the posterior being at seven.
I could not settle in that camp again, nor hunt with any happiness. As
soon as Cecily was well enough to trek we struck camp, and held on in
the direction of Galadi, wherever that might be.