In the Heart of Africa

CHAPTER V.

A prim­itive craft–Stalk­ing the gi­raffes–My first gi­raffes–Rare sport with the finny tribe–Thiev­ing ele­phants.

For many days, while at Sofi, we saw large herds of gi­raffes and an­telopes on the op­po­site side of the riv­er, about two miles dis­tant. On Septem­ber 2d a herd of twen­ty-​eight gi­raffes tempt­ed me at all haz­ards to cross the riv­er. So we pre­pared an im­promp­tu raft. My an­garep (bed­stead) was quick­ly in­vert­ed. Six wa­ter-​skins were in­flat­ed, and lashed, three on ei­ther side. A shal­low pack­ing- case, lined with tin, con­tain­ing my gun, was fas­tened in the cen­tre of the an­garep, and two tow­lines were at­tached to the front part of the raft, by which swim­mers were to draw it across the riv­er. Two men were to hang on be­hind, and, if pos­si­ble, keep it straight in the rapid cur­rent. Af­ter some dif­fi­cul­ty we ar­rived at the op­po­site bank, and scram­bled through thick bush­es, up­on our hands and knees, to the sum­mit.

For about two miles’ breadth on this side of the riv­er the val­ley was rough bro­ken ground, full of gul­lies and ravines six­ty or sev­en­ty feet deep, beds of tor­rents, bare sand­stone rocks, bushy crags, fine grassy knolls, and long strips of mi­mosa covert, form­ing a most per­fect lo­cal­ity for shoot­ing.

I had ob­served by the tele­scope that the gi­raffes were stand­ing as usu­al up­on an el­evat­ed po­si­tion, from whence they could keep a good look­out. I knew it would be use­less to as­cend the slope di­rect­ly, as their long necks give these an­imals an ad­van­tage sim­ilar to that of the man at the mast­head; there­fore, al­though we had the wind in our fa­vor, we should have been ob­served. I ac­cord­ing­ly de­ter­mined to make a great cir­cuit of about five miles, and thus to ap­proach them from above, with the ad­van­tage of the bro­ken ground for stalk­ing. It was the per­fec­tion of un­even coun­try. By clam­ber­ing up bro­ken cliffs, wad­ing shoul­der-​deep through mud­dy gul­lies, slid­ing down the steep ravines, and wind­ing through nar­row bot­toms of high grass and mi­mosas for about two hours, we at length ar­rived at the point of the high ta­ble-​land up­on the verge of which I had first no­ticed the gi­raffes with the tele­scope. Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly I dis­tin­guished the tall neck of one of these splen­did an­imals about half a mile dis­tant up­on my left, a lit­tle be­low the ta­ble-​land; it was feed­ing on the bush­es, and I quick­ly dis­cov­ered sev­er­al oth­ers near the lead­er of the herd. I was not far enough ad­vanced in the cir­cuit that I had in­tend­ed to bring me ex­act­ly above them, there­fore I turned sharp to my right, in­tend­ing to make a short half cir­cle, and to ar­rive on the lee­ward side of the herd, as I was now to wind­ward. This I for­tu­nate­ly com­plet­ed, but I had marked a thick bush as my point of cov­er, and up­on ar­rival I found that the herd had fed down wind, and that I was with­in two hun­dred yards of the great bull sen­tinel that, hav­ing moved from his for­mer po­si­tion, was now stand­ing di­rect­ly be­fore me.

I lay down qui­et­ly be­hind the bush with my two fol­low­ers, and anx­ious­ly watched the great lead­er, mo­men­tar­ily ex­pect­ing that it would get my wind. It was short­ly joined by two oth­ers, and I per­ceived the heads of sev­er­al gi­raffes low­er down the in­cline, that were now feed­ing on their way to the high­er ground. The se­root fly was teas­ing them, and I re­marked that sev­er­al birds were flut­ter­ing about their heads, some­times perch­ing up­on their noses and catch­ing the fly that at­tacked their nos­trils, while the gi­raffes ap­peared re­lieved by their at­ten­tions. These birds were of a pe­cu­liar species that at­tacks the do­mes­tic an­imals, and not on­ly re­lieves them of ver­min, but eats in­to the flesh and es­tab­lish­es dan­ger­ous sores. A puff of wind now gen­tly fanned the back of my neck; it was cool and de­light­ful, but no soon­er did I feel the re­fresh­ing breeze than I knew it would con­vey our scent di­rect­ly to the gi­raffes. A few sec­onds af­ter­ward the three grand obelisks threw their heads still high­er in the air, and fix­ing their great black eyes up­on the spot from which the warn­ing came, they re­mained as mo­tion­less as though carved from stone. From their great height they could see over the bush be­hind which we were ly­ing at some paces dis­tant, and al­though I do not think they could dis­tin­guish us to be men, they could see enough to con­vince them of hid­den en­emies.

The at­ti­tude of fixed at­ten­tion and sur­prise of the three gi­raffes was suf­fi­cient warn­ing for the rest of the herd, who im­me­di­ate­ly filed up from the low­er ground, and joined their com­rades. All now halt­ed and gazed stead­fast­ly in our di­rec­tion, form­ing a su­perb tableau, their beau­ti­ful mot­tled skins glanc­ing like the sum­mer coat of a thor­ough­bred horse, the or­ange-​col­ored stat­ues stand­ing out in high re­lief from a back­ground of dark-​green mi­mosas.

This beau­ti­ful pic­ture soon changed. I knew that my chance of a close shot was hope­less, as they would present­ly make a rush and be off; thus I de­ter­mined to get the first start. I had pre­vi­ous­ly stud­ied the ground, and I con­clud­ed that they would push for­ward at right an­gles with my po­si­tion, as they had thus as­cend­ed the hill, and that, on reach­ing the high­er ground, they would turn to the right, in or­der to reach an im­mense tract of high grass, as lev­el as a bil­liard-​ta­ble, from which no dan­ger could ap­proach them un­ob­served.

I ac­cord­ing­ly with a gen­tle move­ment of my hand di­rect­ed my peo­ple to fol­low me, and I made a sud­den rush for­ward at full speed. Off went the herd, sham­bling along at a tremen­dous pace, whisk­ing their long tails above their hind quar­ters, and, tak­ing ex­act­ly the di­rec­tion I had an­tic­ipat­ed, they of­fered me a shoul­der shot at a lit­tle with­in two hun­dred yards’ dis­tance. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, I fell in­to a deep hole con­cealed by the high grass, and by the time that I re­sumed the hunt they had in­creased their dis­tance; but I ob­served the lead­er turned sharply to the right, through some low mi­mosa bush, to make di­rect­ly for the open ta­ble-​land. I made a short cut oblique­ly at my best speed, and on­ly halt­ed when I saw that I should lose ground by al­ter­ing my po­si­tion. Stop­ping short, I was ex­act­ly op­po­site the herd as they filed by me at right an­gles in full speed, with­in about a hun­dred and eighty yards. I had my old Cey­lon No. 10 dou­ble ri­fle, and I took a steady shot at a large dark-​col­ored bull. The sat­is­fac­to­ry sound of the ball up­on his hide was fol­lowed al­most im­me­di­ate­ly by his blun­der­ing for­ward for about twen­ty yards and falling heav­ily in the low bush. I heard the crack of the ball of my left-​hand bar­rel up­on an­oth­er fine beast, but no ef­fects fol­lowed. Bacheet quick­ly gave me the sin­gle two-​ounce Man­ton ri­fle, and I sin­gled out a fine dark-​col­ored bull, who fell on his knees to the shot, but, re­cov­er­ing, hob­bled off dis­abled, apart from the herd, with a fore­leg bro­ken just be­low the shoul­der. Reload­ing im­me­di­ate­ly, I ran up to the spot, where I found my first gi­raffe ly­ing dead, with the ball clean through both shoul­ders. The sec­ond was stand­ing about one hun­dred paces dis­tant. Up­on my ap­proach he at­tempt­ed to move, but im­me­di­ate­ly fell, and was despatched by my ea­ger Arabs. I fol­lowed the herd for about a mile to no pur­pose, through deep clam­my ground and high grass, and I re­turned to our game.

These were my first gi­raffes, and I ad­mired them as they lay be­fore me with a hunter’s pride and sat­is­fac­tion, but min­gled with a feel­ing of pity for such beau­ti­ful and ut­ter­ly help­less crea­tures. The gi­raffe, al­though from six­teen to twen­ty feet in height, is per­fect­ly de­fence­less, and can on­ly trust to the swift­ness of its pace and the ex­traor­di­nary pow­er of vi­sion, for its means of pro­tec­tion. The eye of this an­imal is the most beau­ti­ful ex­ag­ger­ation of that of the gazelle, while the col­or of the red­dish-​or­ange hide, mot­tled with dark­er spots, changes the tints of the skin with the dif­fer­ing rays of light, ac­cord­ing to the mus­cu­lar move­ment of the body. No one who has mere­ly seen the gi­raffe in a cold cli­mate can form the least idea of its beau­ty in its na­tive land.

Life at Sofi was be­com­ing sad­ly monotonous, and I de­ter­mined to move my par­ty across the riv­er to camp on the un­in­hab­it­ed side. The rains had al­most ceased, so we should be able to live in a tent by night, and to form a shady nook be­neath some mi­mosas by day. On the 15th of Septem­ber the en­tire male pop­ula­tion of Sofi turned out to as­sist us across the riv­er. I had ar­ranged a raft by at­tach­ing eight in­flat­ed skins to the bed­stead, up­on which I lashed our large cir­cu­lar spong­ing bath. Four hip­popota­mi hunters were har­nessed as tug steam­ers. By evening all our par­ty, with the bag­gage, had ef­fect­ed the cross­ing with­out ac­ci­dent–all but Achmet, Ma­homet’s moth­er’s broth­er’s cousin’s sis­ter’s moth­er’s son, who took ad­van­tage of his near rel­ative, when the lat­ter was in the mid­dle of the stream, and ran off with most of his per­son­al ef­fects.

The life at our new camp was charm­ing­ly in­de­pen­dent. We were up­on Abyssini­an ter­ri­to­ry, but as the coun­try was un­in­hab­it­ed we con­sid­ered it as our own. Our camp was near the mouth of a small stream, the Till, trib­utary to the At­bara, which af­ford­ed some ex­cel­lent sport in fish­ing. Choos­ing one day a fish of about half a pound for bait, I dropped this in the riv­er about twen­ty yards be­yond the mouth of the Till, and al­lowed it to swim nat­ural­ly down the stream so as to pass across the Till junc­tion, and de­scend the deep chan­nel be­tween the rocks. For about ten min­utes I had no run. I had twice tried the same wa­ter with­out suc­cess; noth­ing would ad­mire my charm­ing bait; when, just as it had reached the fa­vorite turn­ing-​point at the ex­trem­ity of a rock, away dashed the line, with the tremen­dous rush that fol­lows the at­tack of a heavy fish. Trust­ing to the sound­ness of my tack­le, I struck hard and fixed my new ac­quain­tance thor­ough­ly, but off he dashed down the stream for about fifty yards at one rush, mak­ing for a nar­row chan­nel be­tween two rocks, through which the stream ran like a mill-​race. Should he pass this chan­nel, I knew he would cut the line across the rock; there­fore, giv­ing him the butt, I held him by main force, and by the great swirl in the wa­ter I saw that I was bring­ing him to the sur­face; but just as I ex­pect­ed to see him, my float hav­ing al­ready ap­peared, away he dart­ed in an­oth­er di­rec­tion, tak­ing six­ty or sev­en­ty yards of line with­out a check. I at once ob­served that he must pass a shal­low sand­bank fa­vor­able for land­ing a heavy fish; I there­fore checked him as he reached this spot, and I fol­lowed him down the bank, reel­ing up line as I ran par­al­lel with his course. Now came the tug of war! I knew my hooks were good and the line sound, there­fore I was de­ter­mined not to let him es­cape be­yond the fa­vor­able ground; and I put up­on him a strain that, af­ter much strug­gling, brought to the sur­face a great shov­el-​head, fol­lowed by a pair of broad sil­very sides, as I led him grad­ual­ly in­to shal­low wa­ter. Bacheet now clev­er­ly se­cured him by the gills, and dragged him in tri­umph to the shore. This was a splen­did ba­yard, of at least forty pounds’ weight.

I laid my prize up­on some green reeds, and cov­ered it care­ful­ly with the same cool ma­te­ri­al. I then re­placed my bait by a live­ly fish, and once more tried the riv­er. In a very short time I had an­oth­er run, and land­ed a small fish of about nine pounds, of the same species. Not wish­ing to catch fish of that size, I put on a large bait, and threw it about forty yards in­to the riv­er, well up the stream, and al­lowed the float to sweep the wa­ter in a half cir­cle, thus tak­ing the chance of dif­fer­ent dis­tances from the shore. For about half an hour noth­ing moved. I was just prepar­ing to al­ter my po­si­tion, when out rushed my line, and, strik­ing hard, I be­lieved I fixed the old gen­tle­man him­self, for I had no con­trol over him what­ev­er. Hold­ing him was out of the ques­tion; the line flew through my hands, cut­ting them till the blood flowed, and I was obliged to let the fish take his own way. This he did for about eighty yards, when he sud­den­ly stopped. This un­ex­pect­ed halt was a great calami­ty, for the reel over­ran it­self, hav­ing no check­wheel, and the slack bends of the line caught the han­dle just as he again rushed for­ward, and with a jerk that near­ly pulled the rod from my hands he was gone! I found one of my large hooks bro­ken short off. The fish was a mon­ster!

Af­ter this bad luck I had no run un­til the evening, when, putting on a large bait, and fish­ing at the tail of a rock be­tween the stream and still wa­ter, I once more had a fine rush, and hooked a big one. There were no rocks down stream, all was fair play and clear wa­ter, and away he went at rac­ing pace straight for the mid­dle of the riv­er. To check the pace I grasped the line with the stuff of my loose trousers, and pressed it be­tween my fin­gers so as to act as a brake and com­pel him to la­bor for ev­ery yard; but he pulled like a horse, and near­ly cut through the thick cot­ton cloth, mak­ing straight run­ning for at least a hun­dred yards with­out a halt. I now put so se­vere a strain up­on him that my strong bam­boo bent near­ly dou­ble, and the fish present­ly so far yield­ed to the pres­sure that I could en­force his run­ning in half cir­cles in­stead of straight away. I kept gain­ing line un­til I at length led him in­to a shal­low bay, and af­ter a great fight Bacheet em­braced him by falling up­on him and clutch­ing the mon­ster with hands and knees; he then tugged to the shore a mag­nif­icent fish of up­ward of six­ty pounds. For about twen­ty min­utes lie had fought against such a strain as I had nev­er be­fore used up­on a fish; but I had now adopt­ed hooks of such a large size and thick­ness that it was hard­ly pos­si­ble for them to break, un­less snapped by a crocodile. My reel was so loos­ened from the rod, that had the strug­gle last­ed a few min­utes longer I must have been van­quished. This fish mea­sured three feet eight inch­es to the root of the tail, and two feet three inch­es in girth of shoul­ders ; the head mea­sured one foot ten inch­es in cir­cum­fer­ence. It was of the same species as those I had al­ready caught.

Over a month was passed at our camp, Ehetil­la, as we called it. The time passed in hunt­ing, fish­ing, and ob­serv­ing the coun­try, but it was for the most part un­event­ful. In the end of Oc­to­ber we re­moved to a vil­lage called Wat el Ne­gur, nine miles south-​east of Ehetil­la, still on the bank of the At­bara.

Our ar­rival was wel­comed with en­thu­si­asm. The Arabs here had ex­ten­sive plan­ta­tions of sesame, dhur­ra, and cot­ton, and the nights were spent in watch­ing them, to scare away the ele­phants, which, with ex­treme cun­ning, in­vad­ed the fields of dhur­ra at dif­fer­ent points ev­ery night, and re­treat­ed be­fore morn­ing to the thick, thorny jun­gles of the Set­tite. The Arabs were with­out firearms, and the cel­ebrat­ed ag­gageers or sword-​hunters were use­less, as the ele­phants ap­peared on­ly at night, and were far too cun­ning to give them a chance. I was im­por­tuned to drive away the ele­phants, and one evening, about nine o’clock, I ar­rived at the plan­ta­tions with three men car­ry­ing spare guns. We had not been half an hour in the dhur­ra fields be­fore we met a cou­ple of Arab watch­ers, who in­formed us that a herd of ele­phants was al­ready in the plan­ta­tion; we ac­cord­ing­ly fol­lowed our guides. In about a quar­ter of an hour we dis­tinct­ly heard the crack­ing of the dhur­ra stems, as the ele­phants browsed and tram­pled them be­neath their feet.

Tak­ing the prop­er po­si­tion of the wind, I led our par­ty cau­tious­ly in the di­rec­tion of the sound, and in about five min­utes I came in view of the slate-​col­ored and dusky forms of the herd. The moon was bright, and I count­ed nine ele­phants; they had tram­pled a space of about fifty yards square in­to a bar­ren lev­el, and they were now slow­ly mov­ing for­ward, feed­ing as they went. One ele­phant, un­for­tu­nate­ly, was sep­arat­ed from the herd, and was about forty yards in the rear; this fel­low I was afraid would ren­der our ap­proach dif­fi­cult. Cau­tion­ing my men, es­pe­cial­ly Bacheet, to keep close to me with the spare ri­fles, I crept along the al­leys formed by the tall rows of dhur­ra, and af­ter care­ful­ly stalk­ing against the wind, I felt sure that it would be nec­es­sary to kill the sin­gle ele­phant be­fore I should be able to at­tack the herd. Ac­cord­ing­ly I crept near­er and near­er, well con­cealed in the fa­vor­able crop of high and shel­ter­ing stems, un­til I was with­in fif­teen yards of the hind­most an­imal. As I had nev­er shot one of the African species, I was de­ter­mined to fol­low the Cey­lon plan, and get as near as pos­si­ble; there­fore I con­tin­ued to creep from row to row of dhur­ra, un­til I at length stood at the very tail of the ele­phant in the next row. I could eas­ily have touched it with my ri­fle, but just at this mo­ment it ei­ther ob­tained my wind or it heard the rus­tle of the men. It quick­ly turned its head half round to­ward me; in the same in­stant I took the tem­ple-​shot, and by the flash of the ri­fle I saw that it fell. Jump­ing for­ward past the huge body, I fired the left-​hand bar­rel at an ele­phant that had ad­vanced from the herd; it fell im­me­di­ate­ly! Now came the mo­ment for a grand rush, as they stum­bled in con­fu­sion over the last fall­en ele­phant, and jammed to­geth­er in a dense mass with their im­mense ears out­spread, form­ing a pic­ture of in­tense as­ton­ish­ment! Where were my spare guns? Here was an ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ty to run in and floor them right and left!

Not a man was in sight! Ev­ery­body had bolt­ed, and I stood in ad­vance of the dead ele­phant call­ing for my guns in vain. At length one of my fel­lows came up, but it was too late. The fall­en ele­phant in the herd had risen from the ground, and they had all hus­tled off at a great pace, and were gone. I had on­ly bagged one ele­phant. Where was the valiant Bacheet–the would-​be Nim­rod, who for the last three months had been fret­ting in in­ac­tiv­ity, and long­ing for the mo­ment of ac­tion, when he had promised to be my trusty gun-​bear­er? He was the last man to ap­pear, and he on­ly ven­tured from his hid­ing-​place in the high dhur­ra when as­sured of the ele­phants’ re­treat. I was obliged to ad­mon­ish the whole par­ty by a lit­tle phys­ical treat­ment, and the gal­lant Bacheet re­turned with us to the vil­lage, crest­fall­en and com­plete­ly sub­dued. On the fol­low­ing day not a ves­tige re­mained of the ele­phant, ex­cept the of­fal; the Arabs had not on­ly cut off the flesh, but they had hacked the skull and the bones in pieces, and car­ried them off to boil down for soup.