African Nature Notes and Reminiscences

by Frederick Courteney Selous

When I fired, the rhinoceros's legs seemed to give way under it, and it just sank to the ground, and then, rolling on to its side, lay quite still, and, as I thought, dead. "Tutu," shouted the Kafirs from behind me, meaning "It's done for," and all of them came running up, the cow having jumped up and made off immediately I fired at her companion.

We now all walked together to where the fallen animal lay apparently quite dead. My four-ounce round bullet had made a large hole in the front of its head, into which I and several of the Kafirs pushed our fingers as far as they would go. We then went to the nearest tree, some sixty or seventy yards away, and after resting my two elephant guns—the one still unloaded—against its stem, and placing all our scanty baggage on the ground in its shade, returned to cut up what we believed to be the carcase of a dead animal.

One of my Kafirs, by name Soga, a big strong Makalaka, at once plunged his assegai into the body of the prostrate rhinoceros and commenced to cut through the thick skin, pulling the blade of the assegai towards him with a sawing motion. This incision should have extended from near the top of the back behind the shoulder-blade to the bottom of the chest, and would have been the first step in peeling the whole hide from the upper surface of the body, preparatory to disembowelling the carcase and cutting up the meat; but when Soga had made a cut about two and a half feet long in its side, the limbs of the rhinoceros began to move spasmodically, and it suddenly raised its head and brought it down again with a thump on the ground.

From that moment it commenced to struggle frantically, and was evidently fast regaining consciousness. I shouted to Soga to try and stab it in the heart before it got on its legs; but as he only made a very feeble attempt to do so, I ran up, and snatching the assegai from him, endeavoured to stab the struggling animal to death myself. But it was now fast regaining strength, and with every effort to rise it threw up its head and brought it down on the ground again with a thump.

I managed to plunge the heavy assegai through the cut in its skin and deep into its side, but with a sudden spasmodic movement it broke the shaft in two, leaving a short piece attached to the blade sticking in its body. In another moment it was standing on its legs, but kept reeling about like a drunken man. I now ran to the tree where the guns had been left, and taking the loaded one, aimed a shot at the still staggering rhinoceros, but, as not infrequently happened in the old muzzle-loading days, it missed fire I quickly put on a fresh cap, but as that missed fire too, I concluded that the nipple had got stopped up in some way, and so took up the gun with which I had originally wounded the rhinoceros, and commenced to reload it in frantic haste.

Just as I got the bullet rammed down, however, and before I could put the cap on the nipple, the rhinoceros, which all this time had been making a series of short runs, first in one direction and then in another, but had always been quite close to us, started off in a straight line, putting on more pace at every step; and although we ran as hard as we could, we never overtook it, and I did not fire at it again. My bullet no doubt passed above the animal's brain-pan, and must have lodged in the muscles of its neck, only stunning it temporarily; but it really seemed to be absolutely dead for so long a time after falling to the ground, that its recovery and eventual escape, after receiving a four-ounce bullet through the upper part of the head, and having a gash cut in its side at least two feet long, not to mention a deep stab in the region of the heart, is, I think, one of the most remarkable incidents I have ever witnessed during a long experience of African hunting.

Another equally curious, but far more exasperating experience occurred to me early in May 1877, when I was hunting with two friends, Dorehill and Kingsley, on one of the tributaries of the river Daka, about sixty miles to the south of the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi. At the time of which I am writing buffaloes literally swarmed all over this part of the country, and it was in order to shoot a few of these animals and lay in a supply of good fat meat, that we had left our waggons standing at a place known as the Baobab vley, and made an excursion to the east, necessarily on foot because of the tse-tse fly. Both buffaloes and tse-tse flies, I may say, ceased to exist in this district long long ago.

One evening I was coming home, and within a mile of camp—all my Kafirs and Bushmen carrying heavy loads of meat cut from two fat buffalo cows which I had shot during the day—when, whilst we were passing through a thick patch of scrubby thorn bush, a shot was fired a short distance to our right, immediately followed by a loud purring growl; then all was quiet again.

Calling to my Bushman gun-carrier to keep close, I ran in the direction of the sound, and soon came upon Kingsley quite alone and looking rather scared. Having a sore heel, he had remained in camp; but it appeared that having seen a buffalo bull crossing the open valley on the other side of which our camp was situated, he had gone after it all by himself. Being quite strange to the country and knowing nothing about hunting, Kingsley had lost sight of the buffalo amongst the thorn scrub, and not being able to follow its tracks, was making his way back to camp, when he suddenly saw an animal moving through the bush about twenty yards ahead of him, which he took to be an impala antelope, as he could only see it very indistinctly. He immediately fired at it through the scrub, when, to his horror, a lioness thrust her head into the open, and staring fixedly at him, gave a low growl. Kingsley said he stood quite still, but was afraid to reload his rifle or make any movement for fear of further exciting the savage-looking animal. The latter, however, after having gazed steadily at him for a few moments, turned and trotted off.

We now examined the place where the lioness had been standing when Kingsley fired at her, but could find no blood, and I have no doubt that he missed her. We then tried to track her; but her soft feet had left so little trace on the hard ground that even my Bushmen could not follow it, so we gave it up and all returned to camp together.