The noise that my Kaffir made in mounting higher seemed to puzzle the elephants; they twisted round, flapped their ears about, and turned the muzzle of their trunks in every direction. My attention had been so taken up with the two elephants that I have mentioned, that I had not noticed a large bull which had approached from the other side to watch proceedings. A slight noise that he made drew my attention to him, when, on viewing his gigantic ivories, I became ambitious, and could not resist the temptation of trying to get to my guns to obtain a shot. I caught hold of the wild vine, and was swinging myself down, when the noise that I necessarily made seemed to alarm the elephants. The old lady gave two or three grunts, which recalled her hopeful child, and they all waddled off in the most absurd manner. It was a very pretty family picture.
The elephant has always seemed to me a most grotesque animal; the old-fashioned appearance of the young ones, and the awkward gait of all, with that absurd look as though their skins were second-hand and did not fit; the action of the hind-legs, like an old man’s strut with a pair of breeches on that are far too big, tend to make them look ridiculous; and yet, withal, they walk about as though they considered themselves the complete mould of fashion.
I reached the ground only just in time to see the elephants’ hind-quarters twist about behind a bush, waited a few minutes below the tree to see if either of the three would return; but hearing nothing, I got my two guns up the tree with the help of my Kaffir, and patiently waited there, in the hope that the elephants would return for another inspection. Had I been fortunate enough to have taken my guns up with me at first, I could have easily dropped one of these elephants dead, as their backbones were within twenty yards of me, and a heavy bullet driven down near the vertebrae would have humbled the proudest elephant in Africa.
I had not the slightest idea when I first ascended the tree that any elephant would have come out into this open in search of me; and climbing up a bit of vine being difficult while holding a gun, I waited until I should see some black backs that might indicate the position of the elephants before I hauled up my artillery; thus, however, I lost this splendid chance.
After sitting patiently for upwards of an hour, and hearing nothing more of the animals or even a sound of their presence, I gave up the idea of waiting for them, and was making preparations for a descent, when I saw the top branches of some small trees a few yards distant begin to shake very violently. I cocked my gun, and was quite ready for a bull-elephant, when I saw, to my great disappointment, that the disturbance was caused by two or three little grey monkeys, that were jumping about, and had evidently come to have a joke with me. They looked up into our free with a very revere sort of critical expression; made several faces and two or three short bows; scratched their sides vigorously, and jumped from bough to bough until out of sight.
To show the attention that is sometimes paid to trifling matters in bush-ranging, I will give another day’s sport with Monyosi in the Berea.
We had gone in after elephants, and were on their spoor of the previous night. There had been a great deal of listening and peeping, as the day was so warm that we expected the elephants would be clustered together in some shady glen, and would not move until we were right upon them. As we were seated, listening, Monyosi suddenly looked up attentively at a tree near us, and seemed to think that all was not as it should be. I asked him what was wrong, when he said he did not know, but that a bird had flown to a tree near us, stayed a little while, and had then gone away. By the manner in which it had hopped about, he could see that it was alarmed at something; and it would not have flown towards us, had its flight been occasioned by our noise. I thought the cause a slight one; but still, it is the dust, not the rock, that indicates the wind’s direction. Monyosi did not seem easy, but proposed that we should proceed in the direction from whence the bird had approached us. We did so, and after one hundred yards sat down to listen. Presently a very slight crack of a branch or bit of stick caused our guns to be raised to full cock, and we to peep about between the branches for a sight at whatever it might be. The game was very cunning, and for full two minutes there was not a move on either side; our patience, however, was the greater, as we soon heard two or three light steps from the suspicions quarter. I saw a smile on Monyosi’s face; he uncocked his gun, and gave a low whistle, which was responded to by another in the bush a few yards distant. Soon after, a young English lad, born and bred in the colony, and two Kaffirs, all three armed with guns, came quietly up to us. I knew the boy, and he informed me that he was after the elephants, but, hearing our approach, could not make us out; he thought that he caught a glimpse of something rather red, which was really my untanned leather breeches, and that he fancied it was a red-buck; but the glance was so slight, that he could not be quite certain. He consoled me, however, by saying “he should not have fired at me unless he knew that the elephants were a long way off.” We had stood listening one to the other for about three minutes, and the bird that flew past had given the alarm to Monyosi.
How would some of my friends compete in war singly with black men like this? But fancy one hundred such against perhaps twenty young soldiers inexperienced in the colonial cunning, and laughing contemptuously at the black niggers to whom they are going to give a licking! Many bleached skulls, that do not require one to have the science of Professor Owen to know that they were once tenanted by a spirit recognised in this world as a white man, might tell what was the result of carelessness, and underrating the enemy, and perhaps a little overrating one’s own skill.
We joined the party which we had met in the bush, and together followed the spoor. I now witnessed one of the rare cases of downright cowardice in a Kaffir. One of this English lad’s Kaffirs was a very good hand after buck, but did not aspire to anything more. As we neared the elephants, and heard their rumbling, this black cur shook as though he had an ague, and said he would not go any farther. The English boy told him if he went away he would only have one shot at him, but that he generally drove a bullet pretty straight. This argument the Kaffir seemed to consider a very convincing one, as he kept on with us. The elephants were on the move when we came upon them, and a young bull was quietly walking up a path directly towards us, with a branch held in his trunk. My white companion recommended me not to fire; but, seeing the elephant’s shoulder, I sent my two-ounce bullet into it. I turned and ran, but found, after a dozen yards, that the coward Kaffir was in my way. He did not know exactly what to do, and was not moving at that rapid pace which I always considered advisable after wounding an elephant in this dense forest. A bundle of charmed woods was hung round this Kaffir’s neck, thick enough to have saved the whole Zulu nation for evermore from savage elephants or hungry lions. Feeling indisposed to jog on behind him, I caught hold of this necklace, which was the only article of attire that he wore, and dragged him back, at the same time slipping in front of him. As I passed him, he turned round with horror depicted in his face, and wildness in his eyes. He just called out, “Bulula, bulula!” (Shoot, shoot!) and then came after me: he thought my hand had been the elephant’s trunk, and that he was nearly a gone Kaffir. I managed to get a long thorn deep into my knee during my run, which caused such pain that I could not proceed on the spoor. I went a little way, and saw plenty of blood, but gave up the search to the English lad and his two Kaffirs, whilst I with difficulty reached home. I never heard what was the result of the pursuit,—whether they found and killed, or lost. I was lame for nearly three weeks afterwards, as the thorn was poisonous.
The temper of the elephant seems to fluctuate in even a greater degree than that of man. Sometimes a herd are unapproachable from savageness, at others they are the greatest “curs” in creation. I had received so many warnings from the elephants frequenting the Natal bush—elephants, as I before remarked, particularly savage, from knowing the strength of their jungle, that I used every precaution in approaching them, and always acted as though a fierce and determined charge were to follow the report of my gun. I believe that I frequently ran a hundred yards after firing, when there was no occasion for doing so; but I am convinced that on one or two occasions this little exercise saved me from feeling the weight of an elephant’s foot.