In Brightest Africa

by Carl Ethan Akeley

The herd disappeared into the bush and after a few minutes we descended from our perch and inspected the calf, then started off in the direction the wounded bull had taken, and found him lying dead just a few yards away.

This completed the series, much to our great joy, for by this time we were thoroughly tired of buffalo-hunting. It had been a long, hard hunt, and our safari as well as ourselves were considerably the worse for wear. To shoot a half-dozen buffaloes is a very simple matter and ought to be accomplished almost any day in British East Africa or Uganda, but to select a series of a half dozen that will have the greatest possible scientific value by illustrating the development from babyhood to old age is quite a different matter.

These buffaloes of the Tana country that we found on the plains and in the bush apparently rarely or never go into the swamps, a fact not only confirmed by observation but also indicated by the condition of the hoofs. These are horny, round, and smooth as a result of travelling on the hard and more or less stony ground of the region. But the tinga-tinga buffaloes have lived in the swamp for years and spend practically no time on hard ground; hence the hoofs are long, sharp, and unworn as a result of walking always in the soft mud and water. All this despite the fact that these two herds may actually come in contact at the edge of the swamp. Other herds live in forest country but come out into the grasslands to feed at night, always going back into the forest at daybreak.

In Uganda, where buffaloes are recognized as a menace to life and are of no particular value except for food, they are officially treated as vermin and one may shoot as many as he will. Here the herds had increased to an enormous extent and, because of the dense jungles and general inaccessibility of the country, it was rather difficult to hunt them. While elephant-hunting in Uganda we found the buffaloes a decided nuisance, frequently coming on to them unexpectedly while hot on an elephant trail, sometimes having difficulty in getting rid of them, not wishing to shoot or stampede them because of the danger of frightening away the elephants, to say nothing of the constant menace of running into a truculent old bull at very close quarters in dense jungle. The buffaloes actually mingle with the elephants, each quite indifferent to the other excepting that on one occasion we found elephant calves charging into a herd of buffaloes, evidently only in play. They chased about squealing and stampeding the buffaloes, who kept at a safe distance but did not actually take alarm. Occasionally an old cow whose calf was being hard-pressed by the young elephants would turn, apparently with the intention of having it out, but would always bolt before the elephant could actually reach her. Despite the fact that the record head, fifty-four inches in spread, was shot by Mr. Knowles in Uganda, from our general observation the heads in Uganda run smaller than those of British East Africa while the animals are perhaps heavier.

Although in our buffalo-hunting we have never had any actually serious encounters, I fully appreciate that the buffalo deserves his reputation as one of the most dangerous of big-game animals. His eyesight is good, he has keen scent, and is vigilant and vindictive. While the lion is usually satisfied with giving his victim a knock-out blow or bite, the buffalo, when once on the trail of man, will not only persist in his efforts to find him but, when he has once come up with him, will not leave while there is a vestige of life remaining in the victim. In some cases he will not leave while there is a fragment of the man remaining large enough to form a target for a buffalo's stamping hoofs.

A hunter I met once told me of an experience he had with a buffalo which shows in rather a terrible way these characteristics of the animal. He and a companion wounded a buffalo and followed it into the long grass. It was lurking where they did not expect it and with a sudden charge it was upon them before they had a chance to shoot. The buffalo knocked down the man who told me the story and then rushed after his companion. The first victim managed to climb a tree although without his gun. By that time the other man was dead. But the buffalo was not satisfied. For two hours he stamped and tossed the remains while the wounded man in the tree sat helplessly watching. When the buffalo left, my informant told me, the only evidence of his friend was the trampled place on the ground where the tragedy had taken place. There is nothing in Africa more vindictive than this.

There was another case of an old elephant hunter in Uganda who shot a buffalo for meat. The bullet did not kill the animal and it retreated into the thick bush where there were even some good-sized trees. The old hunter followed along a path. Suddenly the buffalo caught him and tossed him. As he went into the air he grasped some branches overhanging the trail. There he hung unable to get up and afraid to drop down while the wild bull beneath him charged back and forth with his long horns ripping at the hunter's legs. Happily the gun boy came up in time to save his master by killing the beast. This hunter was an extraordinary character. He was very successful and yet he was almost stone deaf. How he dared hunt elephants or any other big game without the aid of his hearing I have never been able to conceive, yet he did it and did it well.

One morning Cuninghame, having gone out with some boys to shoot meat for camp, came upon three old buffaloes. He sent a runner back to camp with the news, and Mrs. Akeley and I started out to join him. Halfway from camp we were obliged to make a wide detour to avoid an old rhino and calf, but soon caught up with Cuninghame. He reported, however, that the buffaloes had passed on into some dense bush. We started to follow but suddenly came upon two rhinos. We quickly turned to leeward in order not to disturb them by giving them our wind, for we were not anxious to bring on a general stampede of the game in the neighbourhood. This turn brought us to the windward of the old cow and calf that we had first avoided, with the result that she came charging up, followed by the calf close at her heels, snorting like a locomotive. Cuninghame helped Mrs. Akeley up a convenient tree. He stood at the base of the tree and I at the foot of another where we waited with our guns ready, watching the old cow go tearing past within twenty feet of us.

We continued on the buffalo trail, but the stampede of the rhino had resulted in alarming the buffaloes so that instead of finding them near by, we were forced to follow them for an hour or more before again coming in sight of them; and again twice more they were stampeded by rhinos that happened to get in our path. At last the buffaloes evidently became tired of being chased from place to place, and came to rest on a sloping hillside which we could approach only by crawling on our hands and knees in the grass for a considerable distance. In this manœuvring it happened that Mrs. Akeley was able to stalk the best bull, and a few minutes later he was finished off and we were busy photographing, measuring, and preparing the skin.