This is the head-quarters of those Abyssinians who come down to hunt elephants, for the young Abyssinians, that is to say the gentlemen of the country, think it part of their education to come here to shoot elephants. There are regular ivory hunters, who live at Azho and the villages near, and these go down to assist. The young Abyssinians who seek to distinguish themselves shoot at the elephant with small shot or slugs, just enough to draw blood, and then it is left to the Neftenias, or hunters, to finish him off with bullets. Their mode of hunting is rather curious. When they see the elephant, of course they stalk him with great care: two lines are made; the first line, on coming up to the elephant, fire and take to their heels as quickly as possible. If the elephant is wounded, he very often charges, and then meets the second line, who receive him with a greater number of shots; they then follow him up, if badly wounded, and despatch him at their leisure. The Abyssinians are, as a rule, bad sportsmen, and seem to me to be totally unacquainted with the commonest rules of wood-craft. I would recommend all sportsmen who hunt in a wild country to adapt their dress as much as possible to the colour of the landscape in which they find themselves. I always shot in brown cord breeches and flax gaiters, with a good cumberbund[12] round my waist, and a short-tailed coat, which was made of strong cotton stuff that I bought in India.
All the servants with us, as well as the followers of the young chief, were in a tremendous fright because of the Baria, the negro tribe of which I spoke before, and who came up to this part of the country to hunt the elephant, and also to kill whatever Abyssinians they could find. I myself never saw one of these redoubtable natives, nor do I believe they would attempt to attack a well-armed party; but in the evening, over the camp fire, many terrible stories were told of how So-and-so was murdered, and how cunning and treacherous the Baria were. Brou, the interpreter, was not behindhand in telling us all sorts of terrible things about them. One story he told us was this: There was a man who lived in a village close to the frontier, and who had to pay tribute to the chief of his province in ivory. He had gone down to the desert, or jungle, to hunt the elephant alone; a wily Baria following him most of the time. It should be stated that this tribe of natives have no fire-arms, and only hunt and destroy with spears and knives. The elephant-hunter was stalking an elephant, and had come up to him; at the moment he fired, the Baria, who had been sneaking after him, jumped up from behind, drove his knife into him, and killed him. This is a good example of their treachery; but the Abyssinians are just as much to blame in regard to the Baria or Shangallas, for whenever the Abyssinians catch them in much smaller numbers than themselves they generally kill them.
A WILY BARIA.
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Feb. 7.—H. went on in front to Coom-Coom-Dema: I said that as it was early I should shoot over part of the country and join him later. I went away into the jungle, which lay south of our camp, and came upon some old elephant tracks. I had not gone very much farther before I saw some gazelles; I managed to get near one of them, and, as it was racing away on the side of a little hill, I rolled it over with my Express. My gun-bearers very soon skinned it, and they having succeeded in lighting a fire, I said they might eat some of it. The way an Abyssinian hunter makes a fire in the jungle is this: he takes some of his powder and rubs it on a bit of cotton cloth which he tears off the clothes he is wearing, and then wraps up a percussion cap in the cloth and hammers the cap between two stones till it explodes; this ignites the dry cloth, and with the help of some twigs and grass, and by blowing very hard on the smouldering cotton, he manages to light a fire. It is wonderful how natives under the most trying circumstances will kindle a flame where no European would think such a thing possible.
My gun-bearers were soon roasting the hind-quarters of the gazelle on the ashes, and also eating some parts of it raw. I was sitting down under the shade of a tree, and heard Goubasee behind me munching something; I turned round, and was much disgusted at seeing him eating the stomach of a gazelle, which was not in the least washed, and in fact was a filthy sight. This is considered a great delicacy by Abyssinians, especially when the stomach is covered with the green undigested food of the animal. After we had all rested, and they had eaten sufficient, we tracked back on our old path, and soon struck the regular caravan road. I thought it would have been a long walk, but, to my astonishment, the hills opened and I saw in front of me a large plain—this was the plain of Coom-Coom-Dema. H. had pitched the tents, and everything was ready and comfortable. Just after we had lunched, one of the servants said that he could see on the plain some large deer, which he called tora; they were in reality hartebeest. They were going down to drink from the pool where we got our water, but directly they saw us they trotted off. Some gazelles got up as we were walking along, and I fired and missed, so did H. There were tracks of buffalo all about our camp, but they were very old, having been made during the rains. Barrakee, who had undertaken the sporting arrangements of the party, said this was a very good place for game, but we determined not to stop here, but to press on to the Tackazzee, the goal of my ambition.
Feb. 8.—This morning we were almost awakened by the noise the little sand-grouse made in circling round and round our tents. I got up and brought down two brace of them, as they wheeled round attempting to settle on some ground close to our camp. It was rather pretty shooting, as the birds came very fast, and I only wished that I could have had some more of it, but the rest of the pack soon got frightened and went away. After this we packed up our traps and left Coom-Coom-Dema. On the road, Barrakee, who was riding a large white horse, pointed me out a herd of giraffes about half a mile off. I attempted to stalk them, but did not succeed in getting near them. They went off at a slight ambling pace, and when once they had crossed the little hill, on the near side of which they were feeding, I could not see them again. Fisk had come with me, and we were both very anxious to kill something. I shot at some sort of deer, but missed, and on my way back saw a gazelle, at which I did not fire.
When I came back to the road, completely parched with thirst, as it was very hot, I found that all our donkeys had stopped: this was very vexing, as my great object was to get on now as quickly as possible. Brou said the donkeys were very heavily loaded, that the day was hot, and that there was no prospect of getting water between where we were and the Tackazzee. This was simply untrue; for when I found Barrakee and talked to him upon the subject, it turned out that there was water farther on; so I immediately made them reload the donkeys and push on. Barrakee fixed our camp by the edge of a dry river-bed, in which there was left a large pool of water, and there were tracks of elephants having drunk here some time previously. We cleared the high grass from the jungle and pitched our tents, after which H. went out shooting, but did not get anything. When it was dark we saw jungle fires in the distance, which our servants all said had been kindled by the Baria to burn us out. This, of course, was all humbug, or they had nothing better to talk about. The place we camped at was called Kourasa, or the house of the long-tailed monkey, and this water-hole which we were camped by, Barrakee told us, is a regular drinking-place for elephants; he added, with much mystery and fear, that perhaps they might come in the night and trample on our camp. I only hoped they would! The natives assured me that we should find the Tackazzee next day; and, accordingly, in the morning we started, H. having gone on in front with the young chief.