PROTECTIVE COLOURING.
Mobita had views on protective colouring. Who is Mobita? Oh, an elephant hunter, a black man; a very good fellow—as black men go. Mobita used to say that elephants, and big and small game generally, could not see black and white. Black they could and white they could, but not a judicious combination of the two. His usual hunting kit was a black hat with a white feather in it, a black waistcoat over a white shirt, a black and white striped loin cloth. His thin arms and legs were dull ebony. There you have Mobita.
Mobita's theory worked very well for a time, but as he had missed an essential he paid the penalty in the end. A zebra is black and white—more or less—and in the bush is practically invisible so long as it stands still. That, then, is the essential adjunct to protective colouring—you must keep still.
This is what happened to Mobita.
Just before the war I was hunting on the edge of the Great Swamp. Early one afternoon, when the day was at its hottest, I heard a shot fired. Later, I met a freshly-wounded tusker and dropped him. I went up to have a look at him, and found dry blood on his ground tusk and a hole behind his near shoulder; someone had just missed his heart. My shot took him in the ear.
I left some of my men to cut out his tusks, and, out of curiosity, went back along his spoor. I had not far to go. Sitting round a pile of green branches I found a dozen of Mobita's people, looking very glum.
They told me their yarn, which I did not believe until I had had a look round for myself. The spoor told me their story was true enough.