Kissaki, 3rd Nov.
SEEKING A ROADWAY THROUGH HILLS
I am back in camp again, after being away seven days on reconnaissance up into the Ulugúru mountains, to try to find a suitable track, back over the hills to Matombo, for porter transport during the approaching rains, when the low road, via Tulo, will be flooded. My party was made up of privates Taylor and Wilson, six native carriers, and a shrewd old native who was supposed to know the country, and, contrary to usual experience, did know it. We found the outermost point of our journey at Kasanga, overlooking Matombo, and high up in the mountains—elevation, 3,900 feet—amongst majestic hill-slopes and fair deep valleys which were cultivated by the numerous inhabitants of the hills, who dwelt everywhere, in their little bits of “crofts,” like the ancient highlander of mediæval ages. We were two days out from camp when we found ourselves in this land of plenty, and land of great beauty; for the scenery surpassed anything we had previously seen in Africa. Up in the mountain heights the air was cool, almost cold; mists fitfully swept over the peaks and dropped like waterfalls into the valleys; it rained, then cleared again—all ever-changing the picture, and the lights and shades on the mountain slopes, and in the valleys—truly it was a most enchanting country. The trail outward, up hill and down valley, and along the line of least resistance, proved to be thirty-one miles in distance, all of which was measured by counting the paces as we trudged along, and surveyed by many compass bearings. From such data I was able completely to map the route, on my return to camp, and this was the manner in which I carried out all such work, when detailed information was wanted.
ELEPHANTS
On the return journey, after descending from the highest ranges, and when drawing away from the last of the cultivated area, the party encountered a small herd of elephant feeding amongst bamboos, and loudly breaking their way along a wide valley bottom. Taylor and I, both armed with ·303 rifles, cut off the track and went to try to get a shot at the beasts—both very keen to bag an elephant. Successfully we worked up-wind on them, and finally drew near to two animals partly hidden in the fringe of the bamboo belt. I doubted the killing capacity of our rifles, but, when we fired, it transpired that both animals dropped—though in the thick cover, for the moment, we couldn’t be sure of the full effect of our shots—one dead, and the other emitting the most dreadful trumpet blasts, that echoed and re-echoed, like thunder, in the enclosed valley. The wounded animal could, apparently, not run away, but we dared not, meantime, go any nearer to him, in case he should charge us down in the tall, tangled grass, where, for us, running was well-nigh impossible. Therefore we decided to leave him for a time, and return to where we had left Wilson and the porters. We found our porter loads scattered broadcast on the track, but not a black was to be seen, for, at the trumpeting of the wounded elephant, they had scattered and fled in mortal terror. Wilson, who was armed with a revolver only, and could not take part in the shooting, in the midst of the uproar had been, while standing on the track, almost knocked down by the rush past of a startled Waterbuck. We shouted for the porters, and, one by one, they appeared, reluctantly, from various directions, to be chaffed and laughed at. They were all wildly excited when we said we had one or two elephants shot, and lying in the bamboos below. Taylor and I had both been suffering from malaria throughout the day—brought out by the cold in the hills—so we decided on a drink of tea to refresh us, and hurried the boys about it, while excited talk ran high. Twenty minutes later, though we could still hear an occasional movement in the bamboos, we decided to venture down to our quarry, but nothing on earth would tempt any of the blacks to come. Soon I saw our quarry, badly wounded, but still able to move about a bit. A moment later I put the elephant down like a log, with a fatal bullet, and we could hear him venting great sobbing breaths as life gave out. We now ventured close up, and saw him lying on his side with all legs out. Now and again his huge head raised, but only to relax to the ground again. By and by he was quite still, and then we went up to him. We were looking at him, highly delighted, since it was our first elephant, when Wilson cried “Look out!” pointing, as he did so, to our right. We wheeled round to see, indistinctly through the canes and grass, the head and the great forward-thrust ears of an elephant quite close to us—I fired, and again rang out that appalling trumpet cry. Soon, as all was quiet, we went forward cautiously, to exclaim our surprise when we found a great cow elephant dead—killed by one of our first shots—and a young bull fatally wounded beside her. The wounded animal was dispatched, and, after some trouble, and assurances that there was not another elephant alive in Africa, we persuaded the black boys to venture down, and to start cutting out the tusks from the skull base with their long-bladed, heavy, wood-chopping knives. I left them, then, to get under the shade of a tree, and to roll myself in my blanket, for by this time I was absolutely exhausted, and in high fever. Water had been found near-by, and I had given orders that we would camp here till the morning. I hazily remember looking out of my blanket about 5 p.m., when the sun was lowering, to see the tusk trophies lying close to me and the native boys, “happy as kings,” smoking huge pieces of elephant trunk, placed on bamboo racks over well-fed fires.
Next day, in the morning before we moved on, troops of natives began to arrive from the hills to cut up, and smoke, and part roast, the elephant meat—to carry it off, when ready, to their homes. It was good to see their simple rejoicing at securing such plentiful food.
On one other occasion I ran across elephants when on reconnaissance work. This was about six miles south-west of Kissaki, at hot springs at the northern end of Magi-ya-Weta hill. I had been out looking over the country, with the view to finding a road route, when I found that large herds of elephant had been recently at the water below the springs, and in some places had wrecked the bush-forest when feeding—for an elephant, if wanting to reach the upper growth, thinks nothing of grasping a tree-trunk, and pulling downwards with his mighty weight (a large elephant weighs about seven tons) until the tree, which has commonly a diameter of six to eight inches, snaps off like a broken match, a yard or two above the ground.
On my return to camp from reconnaissance I happily received permission to go out again in quest of the elephants; and set out next day with my fellow-officer, Martin Ryan—a Rhodesian, who was an experienced elephant hunter.
Kissaki, 5th Dec.