AN ELEPHANT HUNT
TWO FINE ELEPHANTS KILLED
Left camp at 6 a.m., Captain Ryan, self, and nine natives. We camped about a mile from the springs at 12 noon. On viewing the ground, which was new to Ryan, we decided to make the noon camp our base, and here left six of the boys when we started out again at 3 p.m. About 4.30 p.m., when still searching for the large fresh track of bull elephant, we had the extraordinary luck to see three large elephants, with fine tusks, coming along the edge of a belt of forest, on our right flank and towards us. Ryan, beckoning to me, immediately set out after them—after he had dropped a handful of dust to test the wind—and, crouching and running, we were soon very close to them, while the short-sighted brutes, intent on feeding as they moved along in single file, were still unaware of our presence. When at not more than fifteen yards from our quarry, Ryan dropped on his knees, and fired on the elephant opposite him (the centre one of the three), trying to get in the brain shot, just in front of the ear. On the report of Ryan’s shot the rear elephant cleared off the way it had come, while the leading elephant swung wide and then crossed back, at full run, attempting to rejoin its companion. This elephant I now gave my attention to—for I had hesitated, while the huge bulk of Ryan’s elephant interrupted my view—and got in four shots which apparently had no effect, though I felt fairly certain that the second and fourth shots had been true. I followed the brute at a run, but, for the moment, couldn’t find trace of him where he had disappeared in thicker forest. Meantime Ryan’s elephant had recovered, and had got away with six shots in him, delivered at hand-to-hand range; so I rejoined my comrade, to find him empty-handed and fearing he had “mulled” his chance. However, we now set about tracking his elephant over ground very difficult to follow tracks on, as it was hard and dry, and strewn with dead leaves, and had been trampled over recently by numerous elephants. Again and again we went off on a false track, until Ryan, whose keen eye was looking for such minute signs as a single freshly crushed leaf, or a small broken twig, stem, or grass, would declare he was at a loss once more. At last, nearing dusk, Ryan said, “We’ll have one more try and then go to camp,”—and the “one more try” found our prey, outstretched and dead, under the trees of a thick growth of forest. He was a great brute with a splendid pair of tusks, the largest Ryan had ever secured, and this was his fifty-seventh elephant. A few measurements I took next day were:
| ft. | in. | |
|---|---|---|
| Length—from snout of trunk to root of tail | 19 | 3 |
| Length of trunk | 6 | 6 |
| Height to shoulder | 10 | 6 |
| Girth of body | 18 | 0 |
| Length of tusks | 6 | 1½ |
| Weight of tusks, 58 lb. and 59½ lb. = 117½ lb. | ||
A Good Bag: 268½ lb. of Ivory.
We returned to camp highly delighted with our success, and reached it with difficulty in the dark. On the way to camp we encountered a cow elephant feeding in a swamp, and Ryan took considerable pains to pass it, at some distance, without being detected, for he was afraid that if it had a calf and scented danger, it would charge, and prove a furious, fearless brute. I, in my ignorance, would, perhaps, not have foreseen danger there, but it afterwards made me think a bit of the risk of elephant-hunting, when I saw this seasoned hunter treating a single animal with such great respect and care. But Ryan told me that you may only have to make a mistake once, and pay the full penalty of it with your life. He said there are few men, who have hunted elephants long, who are not in the end caught; and long is his list of those who have been killed in Rhodesia by an enraged elephant, at the far end of their hunting days.
We could hear many elephants moving near camp during the night—a herd of cow elephants, Ryan conjectured, for at this season the bulls roam singly or in very small numbers.
At daybreak next morning we set out for the scene of yesterday’s adventure, taking all the boys with us. On reaching our quarry we started the natives to break in the skull to the root of each tusk, an undertaking that, even with axes that we had brought for the purpose, kept the boys incessantly labouring for nigh on two hours, so hard and so great are the bones of an elephant’s head. Meantime, I and a native had gone off to try to track my elephant, starting from the point of shooting and working out to where I’d last seen him. Soon, following his track step by step, we found he had swung to the right, and I then knew I had overrun him yesterday. In a quarter of an hour more, great was my joy to come on him stone dead, not 500 yards from where Ryan’s elephant lay. Again he proved to be all that he had looked (for Ryan had yesterday declared the leading elephant to be the best one), a grand old bull, with a beautiful pair of tusks, weighing, it later proved, 74 lb. and 77½ lb., = 151½ lb., and measuring 6 ft. 5½ in. in length. He was shot through the lungs, and his right hind-leg was crumpled up under him, so probably he was hit somewhere there also, though it was, of course, impossible to move him and see.
We got back to camp in the late afternoon with our loads of ivory, which took six men to carry, and next day trekked to Kissaki, where our arrival with such fine trophies caused much interest and not a little excitement.