The tusks of this animal were magnificent. I do not know what their exact weight was, not having the means wherewith to weigh them. They were probably worth a considerable sum of money in the British market. Of course we did not lay claim to any part of the spoil of that day, with the exception of a few of the beautiful birds shot on the voyage up the river, which were of no value to the natives, although priceless to me. Alas! when I came to examine them next morning, I found that those destructive creatures the white ants had totally destroyed the greater part of them, and the few that were worth stuffing were very much damaged.
Experience is a good though sometimes a severe teacher. Never again did I, after that, put off the stuffing of any valuable creature till the next day. I always stuffed it in the evening of the day on which it was killed; and thus, although the practice cost me many a sleepless night, I preserved, and ultimately brought home, many specimens of rare and beautiful birds and beasts, which would otherwise have been destroyed by those rapacious insects.
That night the scene of our camp was indescribably romantic and wild. Numerous huge fires were lighted, and round these the negroes circled and cooked elephant and venison steaks, while they talked over the events of the day or recounted the adventures of former hunts with noisy volubility and gesticulation.
The negro has a particular love for a fire. The nights in his warm climate are chill to him, though not so to Europeans, and he luxuriates in the heat of a fire as a cat does in the rays of the sun. The warm blaze seems to draw out his whole soul, and causes his eyes to sparkle with delight. A good supper and a warm fire render him almost perfectly happy. There is but one thing wanting to render him supremely so, and that is—a pipe! No doubt, under similar circumstances, the white man also is in a state of enviable felicity, but he does not show his joy like the negro, who seems to forget his cares and sorrows, the miseries which his gross superstitions entail on him, the frequency with which he is exposed to sudden destruction; everything, in short, is forgotten save the present, and he enjoys himself with unmitigated fervour.
It really did my heart good as I sat with my comrades beside our fire and looked around me on their happy faces, which were rendered still happier by the gift from us of a small quantity of tobacco, with which we had taken care to provide ourselves for this very purpose.
I could scarcely believe that the jovial, kindly, hearty fellows were the very men who are well-known to be such cruel, bloodthirsty fiends when under the influence of their dreadful superstitions, and who, but a few hours before, had been darting through the woods besmeared with blood and yelling like maniacs or demons. In fact, the whole scene before me, and the day’s proceedings, seemed to me, at that time, like a vivid dream instead of a reality. Moreover, after I lay down, the reality became a dream, and I spent that night, as I had spent the day, shooting gazelles, lions, wild pigs, and elephants in imagination.