Chapter VII: Introduction: By W. Cotton Oswell (3)

Men differ as to the height of the African elephant. I have seen thousands, and shot the largest one I ever saw. I measured him, and he was 12 ft. 2 in. I have _heard_ of one 17 feet high, but I did not see him, and it is long ago, so perhaps he was the last of the giants! A tusk was exhibited in the African Exhibition in Regent Street, in 1890, by Sir Edmund Loder. It weighed 180 lbs. odd, and was by far the heaviest single tusk known, I should suppose; but I have been shown a pair, 303 lbs. and 9 feet in length. My largest trophy was rather under 8 feet long, and the pair weighed between 230 and 240 lbs. They belonged to a bull I killed on the Zouga; he was the smallest old one I shot in Africa-not more than 9 feet high. I went out with John one bitter morning to provide food for the camp, and, having dropped a white rhinoceros, made for the waggons to get hot coffee and breakfast. On the way we came across an elephant, its head entirely hidden by a thick bush. Thinking, from its size, it was a cow, I was passing it unnoticed, when John, with the desire, I suppose, of adding to his collection of tails, begged me to shoot it. I fired, and down went the bush, as, with a shrill trumpet, the elephant trampled through it, disclosing nearly six feet of naked ivory, over the curve; so long were the tusks, and so diminutive their owner, that the points barely cleared the ground. A second ball finished him.

The drier the country the smaller the elephants. On the Limpopo the average height of the bulls was 11 feet, on the Zouga and through the Kalahari 10 feet. The ivory of the smaller kind was larger and, I am told, closer in grain. These tusks, which are deposited by a gum, are very slow of growth; and the molar teeth, to ensure a supply for a long life, have always a young tooth growing at the back of the alveolar process which pushes out the old ones as they become worn.

Most of my elephants were killed from horseback with the shoulder-shot; the cover is rarely thick enough to allow you to get within reach on foot. Besides, on foot you can seldom dispose of more than two at a time; whereas from horseback, under favourable conditions, you may double or even treble that number. Sometimes you must crawl in, and then, of course, you take the head shot if you can get it; but you ought to be within fifteen yards, on a line parallel with your quarry, just a trifle in advance, and then a ball in the lower depression, or temple, will, nineteen times out of twenty, be instantly fatal. I see Sir S. Baker does not believe in the front shot for Africans; but, though as a rule I agree with him entirely, I certainly have killed them by this. Their heads slope so much backwards, however, that it often fails. In tolerable ground there is but little difficulty; but in thick bush there is always some danger, more especially if you are particular in choosing your tusks; and in riding the bull you select out of the herd there is a certain amount of knack--you settle to him and then press him individually, disregarding the rest of the herd for the time. He shoots ahead of his companions, or turns round on you and charges; in either case you have gained your object--separation. If he charges, put the horse to the gallop and let him follow you, the farther the better. Watch as he slacks off, keeping about twenty yards ahead, and pull up sharp when he comes to a stand. He is too blown to charge again, and when he turns to go after his mates he must give you his side; one or two shots properly placed at short range are enough, and you are away again after the flying herd. The oftener you attack the easier the victory, for the heavy beasts get tired, and in consequence are much less difficult to kill.

The little elephant is an amusing imitator of the ways of his elders. I have come upon cow herds with a number of very small calves. As the mothers move off, disturbed and trumpeting, the little fellows fancy it their business to follow suit. Up goes each tiny trunk with a penny trumpet and a fussy waving to and fro. When frightened they run under their mothers, and peer out in the most old-fashioned way; and if you have been unfortunate enough to kill the parent, they will often follow your horse--poor little beggars!

The mothers, I think, as a rule, do not show so much affection for their young as might be expected. They are too nervous and easily affected to remain mistresses of themselves, and, so far as I have experience, forget their offspring in troubled times. You have occasionally striking instances to the contrary, but they are the exceptions. In a large herd of females I once shot a young bull, believing him a good tusked cow; as he dropped, a gaunt old lady, presumably his mamma, fell out from the herd, and charged me at once. I was on horseback and galloped away from her, as she had shabby stumpy tusks, and though I was that day shooting for the pot, there were plenty of others to choose from. She turned back to the dead elephant, which lay in the opening through which I had to pass to get at the others, and stood guard over it, charging in the most determined way every time I attempted to get by--which I had to do at last by allowing her to follow me and then doubling on her. This scene I remember more clearly than I otherwise perhaps should because of an extraordinary sight. When I caught the elephants again they were slinging down a hillside. Dismounting, I killed three of them, two pitching on their heads and rolling over like rabbits.

We shot through the country of the Bakaa for about seven weeks, north and south of the rocky hills on which they lived, and I was here first introduced to that giant tree, the baobab. I was following elephant spoor on foot, with three or four men, through thick thorns, when I found that they had led me off the tracks; and on looking up for a reason why, quite close to me stood what at first I took to be the body of an elephant, I threw my gun into my left hand to be in readiness, to the amusement of my followers, who, knowing I had never as yet fallen in with the baobab (_Adansonia digitata_), had led me a little aside to grin at my astonishment. These quaint, enormous trees seem to have belonged, like many of the animals of Africa, to a bygone world, and, finding the present doesn’t suit them, they are taking their leave. A few of the old ones still remain, but I never saw a young one. The largest I measured was 74 feet girth at four feet from the ground, and the smallest 45 feet, but I perhaps overlooked smaller specimens.

We had very good sport, unbroken by accident or anything remarkable. Our starvelings had fattened day by day, and were now shining and very merry and happy in their new skins. Uncivilised man does not take long to pick up; he only wants food, and plenty of it. Shall I be believed if I say that Kafirs will eat, if you give it them, from 12 lbs. to 15 lbs. of solid meat in the day? It appears, I know, an impossible feat, but I can vouch for it and partly explain it, too; for in a short journey with Livingstone, between the Chobé and Zambesi rivers, two or three years after this, we had no sort of meal with us, and were consequently obliged to live on meat alone. And I certainly thought the dear old Doctor was very greedy, for he would eat 4 lbs. for his breakfast and the same or more for his dinner. On telling him my opinion of his performance, he retaliated, ‘Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve been thinking just the same of you!’ The fact is that a very large quantity of meat is required if nothing else is eaten. When I got back to the waggons I tried giving two or three of the men a handful of beans with their rations, and found they could not possibly eat more than 3 lbs. of flesh, the smaller mixed diet meeting all the requirements of the system.

We had harried the country of the Bakaas a good deal, and decided on seeking a new field along the banks of the Limpopo, where we heard the game--elephants especially--were in great abundance; so, setting our heads about E. by S., we journeyed onwards, and, travelling slowly, came to it on the third or fourth day--the last twenty-four hours without water for the cattle.

This day ought to be marked with a very large though dull-coloured stone in my shooting annals. Murray made a long _détour_ to the N.E., intending to strike the river lower down and follow it up to the encampment. I kept within easy distance of the waggons, as I was anxious to see the cattle watered and well cared for. I shot two large bull elephants and a rhinoceros, and one of the drivers killed a giraffe and a quagga. I think we must have been near the river, for men were left behind to cut them up and dry the flesh, and I do not remember any other water within reach. It was about 3 P.M. when we drew up on the bank, and I was sitting down and enjoying the pleasant sight of the thirsty beasts taking their fill, when I heard three shots in quick succession three-quarters of a mile down stream. It could only be Murray, for there were no guns in the country in those days except our own and those of the Boers far away to the eastward, and my Kafirs would have told me soon enough had any stray party of these been about. Again came shot after shot, and thinking Murray was either in trouble or had fallen in with a herd of buffalo, the spoor of which was very plentiful, I caught one of the ponies, and putting the bit in his mouth, kicked him along as fast as he could go in his waterlogged condition.

Immediately opposite the sound of the guns the bush was so thick I could not get through with the horse; so, tying him to a tree on the outside, I crawled in, and came upon a kind of backwater from the main river, very deep, 150 yards long by fifty wide, with high banks, especially the one opposite me, on which sat the dear old laird blazing away right merrily--his after-rider helping him keep up the cannonade by loading one of the guns. ‘What is it?’ I shouted. ‘Look at those beasts,’ he replied--_bang_. ‘There again’--_bang_. ‘Look!’ he cried. The pool was alive with monstrous heads, and though this was the first time I had seen the hippopotamus in the flesh--fat, perhaps, I ought to say--for we had then no friendly hippo in the Zoo--there was no mistaking him.

I opened fire at once from my side at heads which showed for a second above water and then disappeared below, again to reappear; and Murray kept pounding away from his. This went on for a quarter of an hour, and nothing came of it; though the hippos were hit every time, not one of them seemed to die--there was, apparently, the same amount of snorting, puffing, and blowing--but no results of the thirty or forty shots that had been fired, and yet the animals were within twenty or twenty-five yards of us. ‘Have you killed any, old fellow?’ I shouted, and the answer came back to me, ‘No!’ At the same moment a big bull made straight for the part of the bank on which I was standing. Letting him get his forelegs clear of the water, I fired within three feet of his head, blowing him back, as it seemed, into the stream. ‘Well, I’ll swear I hit him!’I roared to Murray. ‘Oh, I’ve hit all I’ve fired at,’ was his reply. The evening was closing in, and just before we started for the waggons one hippopotamus floated up dead on Murray’s side. We looked at one another, and did not say much of our shooting. Next morning, however, on the surface of the creek lay fourteen huge bodies--a hippopotamus sinks to the bottom when killed, and only floats when the gas distends the stomach; at least, that was our reading of the riddle. It is the poorest of sport, and I never shot another except for food. The young are very good eating, the flesh resembling the most delicate pork.

We knew nothing about the tusks when we shot this first batch, and so lost some valuable ivory. Large hippopotamus’ teeth were then worth 20_s._ a lb., when elephant ivory would bring only 5_s._ 6_d._, the former, I believe, being used for the finest sort of inlaying and artificial teeth.[4]

The hippopotamus and crocodile live together in the same rivers, and keep the peace, though on what pact I know not, for the young of the former would be sucking-pig to the latter; I suppose there is a mutual agreement of bear and forbear. The hippopotamus looks more like a retired publican than a fighter, but whether he can bite or not, ask the canoes. The little calves stand on the broad backs of their mothers as the school moves from one feeding ground to another, and this may be a precautionary measure, for I fear ‘Brer’ Crocodile is not a very honourable fellow. I may mention as a curious fact that once or twice I found his armoured skeleton fifteen feet up in the trees by the river’s bank. The Kafirs assured me that it was thrown there by an elephant who had come down to drink, and on whose trunk the crocodile had fastened, whereupon the elephant in his fright and fury had kneaded him to death and then, with a toss from his tusks, treed him. I could see, and can suggest, no better explanation of his position--high above even flood mark.

Next morning our now plump Bakaa came as a deputation, assured us we had made their hearts quite white, and requested leave to return to their kraals. It was granted, of course, and a few days later, after drying their strips of meat and making it up into large faggots, having requisitioned as carriers a number of Ba-Lala--a kind of poor Kafirs who hang on the outskirts of the more powerful tribes like pariahs or mean whites, and whose position I could never exactly make out--they set out for their villages, each man, woman, and child staggering under as much meat as he or she could possibly stand up under. This one day’s shooting of elephants and hippos had given them over 60,000 lbs. They had large stores beside, and every few days had sent back men with loads to their chief throughout the whole time of their being with me. They _all_ went to their homes. Out of the 600 not one was missing, sick or feeble.

We shot down the river for a month or five weeks. On one of the last days, Murray and I rode out together. We usually took our separate beats, and this is, as a rule, by far the best plan, for men get jealous shooting against one another--the camp fires dull; in this way, too, you learn more of the country through which you are travelling. We had pottered about, shot a giraffe, and some smaller game, when accidentally we lighted upon a herd of elephants. Now you very seldom come across elephants by chance; you have nearly always to follow them for miles from the water; but here they were, and eight fine bulls too--nothing very large in tusks, but all good. Though startled, they stood and fronted us. We each took one of the flankers, firing at the point of the shoulder. With a flourish of trumpets the whole eight charged in a crescent--it was a grand sight--we turned and galloped right and left, the bulls pressing after Murray, and in their course driving up an old mahoho, who puffed and snorted, and putting on full steam managed at last to get clear, in great alarm. We only bagged a couple; in after years with more knowledge I should have got at least four single-handed.

The season was drawing on, and we set our heads southward and westward towards Mabotsé, and, shaking the dear old Doctor and Mrs. Livingstone by the hand, went down to the Colony, I to refit for next year, Murray to return to England. I should have managed very well with the stores I had, but from December to April you cannot keep your horses alive--the horse sickness kills every one. This mysterious illness, though an epidemic at the Cape, is endemic through the old hunting grounds. It is said to be peripneumonia, and to arise from the rank vegetation springing up after the first rains; but I think some other explanation of its cause than this must be found, as the horses suffered just the same once when I was crossing the Bakalahari desert rather too early in the season, for I lost six in nine days. Bleeding to exhaustion seems the only remedy, and one or two I certainly managed to pull through by opening the veins at both sides of their necks at once, and letting the blood run till I could push them down with my hand. Had it not been for this we should never have taken the trouble of the long journey to and fro, but have remained quiet for the hot months, and then resumed the campaign when the weather became cooler.