I had determined to make Gulánleh my headquarters for elephant-hunting, and to send my two Somáli trackers, who were mounted, together with a Habr Gerhajis horseman who had joined us at Mandeira, into all the large elephant jungles within twenty miles. Meanwhile I remained at Gulánleh, going out shooting every day. Here I was lucky enough to bag two very fine bull oryx and two cows, all four having long, straight horns. A few buck Walleri and plateau gazelles followed, and on the second day of my stay we put up nine ostriches, there being two cocks and seven hens. I fired at them with the Martini-Henry at three hundred yards as they sailed away, but only knocked up the dust around them. Three times we fell in with ostriches, but always found their vision too good for us. They look like gigantic fowls as they go streaming away over the plains. At Gulánleh we also saw a herd of wild asses, which halted fifty yards away to gaze at us. We, however, held our fire, not considering them fair game. They were splendid animals, very well marked with stripes on the legs.
On 13th May my patience was rewarded by the arrival of the three horsemen, with the news that they had found a large herd of elephants at Jalélo, about twelve miles away to the west; so we packed a few blankets, axes, tinned provisions, and other necessaries on a camel, and filling my pockets with dates, I set out at 8 A.M. for the Jalélo covert, accompanied by two mounted trackers, the Midgán, and two other men, leaving the Gulánleh camp in the charge of Núr Osman. The forest at Jalélo consists chiefly of the heavy gudá timber bordering the Hembeweina river, which lower down is called Issutugan. There are extensive tracts of reeds in the river-bed, and these are so dense it is hard work forcing a path through them, and once inside, it is impossible to see anything except at a distance of a few feet. After a hot march we struck the Hembeweina river at Jalélo, and, sending the mounted trackers and all the other men to hunt up the elephants, I sat under a wild date-palm, and lunched off sardines, dates, and the contents of my water-bottle.
The midday sun had been fearfully hot, and I was just dozing off to sleep under the grateful shade of the date-palm, when my head tracker, Hussein Debeli, came bounding up in a wonderful state of excitement, brandishing his big stabbing spear and dancing round me in circles. I knew at once that his news was good, and, after a pause to take breath, he said he had suddenly seen a very large bull elephant in the bed of the river only half a mile below my palm-tree. Packing everything quickly on the camel, and leaving orders for it to be brought on slowly after us, I took Hussein Debeli as guide, and shouldering my four-bore rifle, which weighed over twenty pounds, I started off to look up the elephant. As we rounded a spur he came into full view, walking quickly down the centre of the river-bed below us, turning his head from side to side as he swung along, his great ears sticking out at right angles like studding-sails. He looked rather disturbed in his mind, and as a breeze was blowing from us down the river towards him, he had no doubt winded us, or one of the men who had been sent to look for him.
Going as fast as we could, we ran along the high bank to intercept him, and if possible to get below and to leeward of him before beginning the attack, but as we got nearly abreast he saw us and broke into a shambling trot. Seeing that he was escaping us I opened fire with the four-bore, though the range was at least seventy yards. At the shots he spun round and turned up stream again at a great rate. Bathed in perspiration from the hot sun, and desperately thirsty, I followed as fast as I could, and at last, in the distance up the river, appeared the two horsemen, with red tassels flying and spears flashing in the sun, galloping down at full speed to head the elephant. This had the effect of forcing him to plunge into the broad bed of reeds, where he pulled up, comparatively secure from attack. It so happened, however, that he had chosen a spot where the steep river bank overlooked the reeds, so that on going to the edge and peeping over, I could see his head and the ridge of his back just rising above them. The range was far, over sixty yards, but firing from where we were was preferable to the impossible task of trying to approach him noiselessly in the reeds, so, aiming for the temple, I opened fire again. A right and left were answered by an unmistakable crack as of a big bullet hitting bone, and by a “swish” as the second shot, going over the mark, went innocently through the tops of the reeds. The first shot, however, had told, boring a clean hole through the flap of the ear and entering the skull rather far back. The elephant gave a shrill trumpet, spread out his ears, and spun round facing us, then he swung back into the original position.
Another shot, fired at the place where I guessed his shoulder to be, made him throw up his trunk and subside into the reeds, but he was up again in an instant, looking very sick. This would never do, so climbing down the steep scarp to the lower level, and edging carefully round the margin of the reeds till nearly opposite him, and then going in a little way so that I could see his temple above the reeds some thirty yards away, I took a very careful aim and fired. The elephant dropped at once, and when my Somális, who were standing on the bank beyond him, raised a hunting-song, I knew that he was dead. We now went in, following the path he had made into the reeds, and found him lying on his side, one tusk being four feet long and fairly thick; the other had lost a foot from the point, possibly broken off while uprooting a tree. He was a fine fellow, and when we brought a tape later on, we found he measured ten feet six inches perpendicular height at the shoulder.
The camel coming up, we got down axes and at once set to work to cut out the ivory. I found the Somális very feeble at this work, as it was sunset by the time they had removed one tusk, and they seemed thoroughly exhausted. Then a heavy rain-storm burst over us, and when it had stopped the setting sun left us wet through, shivering under a thorn bush, the river valley turned temporarily into an immense marsh, and, worst of all, no moon. We had seen many fresh lion tracks in the river-bed during our hunt, which fact did not tend to improve the outlook, and my five men declared themselves too exhausted to collect dry firewood, and lay like logs, looking the picture of misery.
After ten minutes wasted in trying to coax them to help me, during which I was only answered by grunts, I tried the effect of storming at them, and seeing I was annoyed and fearing for their precious salaries, they sulkily began to look about for scraps of bark which might have escaped the general wetting. They considered a fire unnecessary, saying that Allah would keep the lions away, and that they were too wet and miserable to care whether they were eaten up or not. Not being bad fellows, however, they afterwards began to warm to their work, and collected a goodly pile, and digging out a box of matches from my bag, we soon had a cheerful blaze, and made a thorn zeríba round our bivouac. The place now looked fairly comfortable, with our clothes hanging upon the surrounding branches.
The Somális were before long snoring under some of my blankets which I had to lend them, but I had no intention of going supperless to bed, and sat up for two hours longer, cooking a formidable dish of soup and a pot of cocoa, and on the whole thoroughly enjoying myself, with the tusk of my first bull elephant lying on the grass before me. The consequence was that when we were roused up next morning by the sun shining into our eyes, I felt quite fresh, while my companions did nothing but grunt and shiver under the blankets. By noon we had cut out the other tusk, and packing everything on the camel, we set out to march three miles down the river to Hembeweina.
During our short march we saw lesser koodoo, oryx, and Waller’s gazelles, but I was unsuccessful with these, and we formed a second bivouac without having found the main herd of elephants of which we had been in search. Next morning we marched back to Gulánleh, intending to bring away our main camp which had been left there, and to strike the river again at Sobát, twelve miles above Jalélo. This plan we carried out, forming an encampment at Sobát near the great rocks through which the Issutugan trickles at this spot. Below our camp the river-bed opened out into a broad, dry, sandy wádi without reeds, and bordered by dense forest with aloe undergrowth. The banks of this river from Sobát to Hembeweina were carpeted with grass and there was a good supply of water; moreover, the nearest Somáli karias were those of the Abdul Ishák, Habr Gerhajis, at least twenty miles to the south-east. These are the conditions most favourable for the presence of game.