I laid his body by the side of that of the Walleri, and photographed the pair, cutting down some thorn-trees, whose branches threw long shadows over the picture; then calling for the camels and loading up the bodies, we followed the tracks of the caravan, and found camp pitched two miles from the scene of this incident.
We made two marches to Haljíd, where, hearing by night the croaking of thousands of bull-frogs, we discovered a considerable body of water, in the form of a pool half a mile long, occupying the river channel in the centre of the Jerer Valley. There were plenty of rhino, oryx, and lesser koodoo tracks here. I remained halted all day on 5th April, shooting three oryx out of a herd, a welcome supply of meat; and on the evening of the 6th we marched to Túli. We lost our way while hunting at some distance from the caravan, and only found the new camp at midnight after a lot of signal shots had been fired. I remained in this neighbourhood for four days to hunt, as rhinoceroses were very numerous here, coming to drink at night at the pools in the centre of the valley, and going away great distances in every direction to hide in the thickest mimósa forests by day. The best way to find them is to visit the pools in the early morning, and follow any fresh tracks of the night before. In this way, after four or five hours’ tracking, one is likely to come upon them feeding about, or, if after eleven o’clock, lying under a shady bush asleep.
On 7th April my men found a dozen young ostriches in the thick jungle near Túli Hill. They were pretty little birds with soft yellow and black down for plumage, and beady black eyes, and stood a foot high, on sturdy yellow legs. I did all I could to get the parent cock bird: first, by following behind a camel, and then by sitting till midday in ambush near the nest; but all my attempts were unavailing. We had these young birds for ten days or more in our camp, carrying them, when marching, in hutches made of empty beer boxes, on camel-back; and they became very tame, but eventually, one by one, they all died.
On the 8th April I rose before dawn with Géli, Hassan, my camelman Abokr, my syce Daura, and a guide. We took one camel with us, and holding due west we entered the thick mimósa forest which is called Gol Wiyileh,[38] or the “Valley of Rhinoceroses”; and after going four miles, when we had gained the centre of the valley, in dense bush, we came to fresh tracks of three of these animals, which had passed late in the night, making for the south-west from the pools of the Jerer Valley. They led us through many miles of thick bush, but the tracking was easy owing to there being three of them together; and at one o’clock in the afternoon, after having left camp for seven hours, we came on them standing together in the dense shade of a very thick clump of umbrella mimósas. There was a full-grown bull, accompanied by a large cow and a bull calf, the big bull having a very fine front horn.
I at once sank to a sitting position, holding my eight-bore, while Hassan laid down the heavy four-bore on the grass beside me to be used in case of a charge. The big bull was eighty yards away, and I fired for his ear, and he dropped dead, remaining in a sitting posture and looking as if carved in stone. I fired the other barrel at one of the others, which turned out to be the large calf, and the game made off. We decided not to follow them up at once, but to give them time to get over their fright, as they had never actually seen us. So I took a careful photograph of the big bull, and after taking off the head and some shields, I sent Daura back to Túli on Rás Makunan’s mule, telling him to bring the camp to a deserted zeríba which we had noticed while tracking, not far from where the bull lay.
Leaving Abokr, the guide, and a camel by the body, I took my two hunters, Géli and Hassan, and followed the track of the remaining rhinoceroses, which was plentifully sprinkled with blood. I came upon them in very thick cover, standing forty yards away, heads towards us; and at once sitting down with the rifle I was carrying, which happened to be the heavy four-bore, I fired at the nearest head through a maze of interlaced branches.
The four-bore pushed me over on my back, and the rhinos charged us at once with a volley of puffing sounds, crashing through the jungle at full gallop. As I rose to my feet the first, the young bull, passed me, and took after the two men; the big cow followed, passing me at a distance of only ten yards, and I threw the rifle to my shoulder and knocked her over, making her turn a somersault with her four legs fighting the air! Giving a hurried look at her, and seeing her lying still, I rushed on after the other; but although he had been twice hit I lost him, after another half mile, in some high durr grass. Returning to the big cow, I found her still unconscious, but gently breathing, lying on her side, and I finished her with a shot through the head. The young bull, I think, must have eventually recovered, as the two wounds in the head, having missed the brain, would not have injured him mortally. Leaving the men to prepare the heads and shields for conveyance to camp, I walked to the deserted zeríba and found the camp pitched inside, and dinner ready; and two hours later, at sunset, the trophies came in, Daura chanting a hunting song.
We spent the morning of the 9th preparing the trophies, and in the evening marched back to Túli. I shot an oryx with good horns, and a Walleri buck, and next day we made another march of ten miles.
We reached the grazing grounds of the Sheikh Ash Ogádén, a very friendly set of people, whom I had met before. The men, who were with the camels grazing in the outer pastures, ran away on first seeing us, mistaking my men, who carried Snider rifles, for Abyssinian raiders. But soon they all rushed back, shouting and crowding round my riding camel, and raising scores of hands for me to shake.