The rhinoceros gives far more trouble to the hunters than the elephant. It is much swifter, more active, and can turn more rapidly, spinning round as if on a pivot, and baffling their attempts to get at its hind leg. Unlike the elephant, it can charge on three legs, so that a single wound does not disable it. Still the Hamran Arabs always kill the rhinoceros when they can, as its skin will produce hide for seven shields, each piece being worth two dollars, and the horn is sold to the Abyssinians as material for sword hilts, the best horn fetching two dollars per pound.
Lion-hunting is not a favorite pursuit with the Hamrans, as they gain little if successful, and they seldom come out of the contest without having suffered severely. They always try to slash the animal across the loins, as a blow in that spot disables it instantly, and prevents it from leaping. Sometimes the lion springs on the crupper of the horse, and then a back-handed blow is delivered with the two-edged sword, mostly with fatal effect.
The buffalo, fierce and active as it is, they hunt with the sword. Nothing, perhaps, shows the splendid horsemanship and daring courage of the Hamrans better than a scene which was witnessed by Sir S. Baker.
A large herd of buffaloes was seen and instantly charged by the aggageers, and, while the buffaloes and hunters were mixed together in one mass, the irrepressible little Jali suddenly leaned forward, and seized the tail of a fine young buffalo, some twelve hands high. Two other hunters leaped from their horses, snatched off their belts, and actually succeeded in taking the animal alive. This was a great prize, as it would be sold for a considerable sum at Cassala. Now as Jali was barely five foot three inches in height, and very slightly made, such a feat as seizing and finally capturing a powerful animal like a buffalo bull was really a wonderful one.
They are as active on foot as on horseback. On one occasion, three of them, Jali of course being one, were so excited with the chase of a wounded elephant that they actually leaped from their horses and pursued the animal on foot. The elephant was mad with rage, but seemed instinctively to know that his enemies wanted to get behind him, and always turned in time to prevent them. Active as monkeys, the aggageers managed to save themselves from the charges of the elephant, in spite of deep sand, which impeded them, while it had no effect on the elephant. Time after time he was within a yard or so of one of the hunters, when the other two saved him by dashing upon either flank, and so diverting his attention.
They hunt the hippopotamus as successfully as they chase the elephant, and are as mighty hunters in the water as upon land. In this chase they exchange the sword and shield for the harpoon and lance. The former weapon is made on exactly the same principle as that which has already been described when treating of the hippopotamus hunters of South Central Africa, but it is much lighter. The shaft is a stout bamboo about ten feet in length, and the head is a piece of soft steel about a foot long, sharply pointed at one end and having a single stout barb. One end of a rope, about twenty feet in length, is firmly attached to the head, and to the other end is fastened a float made of a very light wood called ambatch, which is also used for making canoes and rafts.
When the hunter sees a hippopotamus, and means to attack it, he puts on his hunting dress, i. e. he braces a leathern belt round his waist, and takes off all his clothes. He then fixes the iron head on the bamboo shaft, winds the rope round the latter, and boldly enters the water, holding the harpoon in the right hand and the ambatch float in the left. As soon as he comes within striking distance of his victim, the harpoon is hurled, and the hunter tries to find a spot in which the infuriated animal cannot reach him. The wounded hippopotamus dashes about, first in the river, then on the bank, and then in the river again, always trailing after it the rope and float, and so weakening itself, and allowing its enemies to track it. Sooner or later they contrive to seize the end, drag the animal near the bank, and then with their lances put it to death.
Often, when they have brought the hippopotamus to the shore, it charges open-mouthed at its tormentors. Some of them receive it with spears, while others, though unarmed, boldly await its onset, and fling handfuls of sand into its eyes. The sand really seems to cause more pain and annoyance than the spears, and the animal never can withstand it, but retreats to the water to wash the sand out of its eyes. In the mean time, weapon after weapon is plunged into its body, until at last loss of blood begins to tell upon it, and by degrees it yields up its life.
Sir S. Baker gives a most animated description of one of these strange hunts.
One of the old Hamran hunters, named Abou Do—an abbreviated version of a very long string of names—was celebrated as a howarti, or hippopotamus hunter. This fine old man, some seventy years of age, was one of the finest conceivable specimens of humanity. In spite of his great age, his tall form, six feet two in height, was as straight as in early youth, his gray locks hung in thick curls over his shoulders, and his bronze features were those of an ancient statue. Despising all encumbrances of dress, he stepped from rock to rock as lightly as a goat, and, dripping with water, and bearing his spear in his hand, he looked a very Neptune. The hunters came upon a herd of hippopotami in a pool, but found that they were too much awake to be safely attacked.