AN ELEPHANT HUNT.
In Africa a slaughtered elephant is considered public property by the neighboring villagers, all of whom have a right to carve the giant till his bones are bare. A genuine sportsman claims nothing but the ivory and tail, the latter being universally a perquisite of the king. Yet I frequently found that associations were made among the natives to capture this colossal beast and his valuable tusks. Upon these occasions, a club was formed on the basis of a whaling cruise, while a single but well-known hunter was chosen to do execution. One man furnished the muskets, another supplied the powder, a third gave the iron bolts for balls, a fourth made ready the provender, while a fifth despatched a bearer with the armament. As soon as the outfit was completed, the huntsman’s juju and fetiche were invoked for good luck, and he departed under an escort of wives and associates.
An African elephant is smaller, as well as more cunning and wild, than the Asiatic. Accordingly, the sportsman is often obliged to circumvent his game during several days, for it is said that in populous districts, its instincts are so keen as to afford warning of the neighborhood of fire-arms, even at extraordinary distances. The common and most effectual mode of enticing an elephant within reach of a ball, is to strew the forest for several miles with pine-apples, whose flavor and fragrance infallibly bewitch him. By degrees, he tracks and nibbles the fruit from slice to slice, till, lured within the hunter’s retreat, he is despatched from the branches of a lofty tree by repeated shots at his capacious forehead.
Sometimes it happens that four or five discharges with the wretched powder used in Africa fail to slay the beast, who escapes from the jungle and dies afar from the encounter. When this occurs, an attendant is despatched for a reinforcement, and I have seen a whole settlement go forth en masse to search for the monster that will furnish food for many a day. Sometimes the crowd is disappointed, for the wounds have been slight and the animal is seen no more. Occasionally, a dying elephant will linger a long time, and is only discovered by the buzzards hovering above his body. Then it is that the bushmen, guided by the vultures, haste to the forest, and fall upon the putrid flesh with more avidity than birds of prey. Battles have been fought on the carcass of an elephant, and many a slave, captured in the conflict, has been marched from the body to the beach.
CHAPTER LXXIII.
The war, whose rupture I mentioned at the end of the seventieth chapter, spread rapidly throughout our borders; and absorbing the entire attention of the tribe, gave an impulse to slavery which had been unwitnessed since my advent to the Cape. The reader may readily appreciate the difficulty of my position in a country, hemmed in by war which could only be terminated by slaughter or slavery. Nor could I remain neutral in New Florence, which was situated on the same side of the river as Toso, while the enemies of Fana-Toro were in complete possession of the opposite bank.
When I felt that the rupture between the British and myself was not only complete but irreparable, I had less difficulty in deciding my policy as to the natives; and, chiefly under the impulse of self-protection, I resolved to serve the cause of my ancient ally. I made whatever fortifications could be easily defended in case of attack, and, by way of show, mounted some cannon on a boat which was paraded about the waters in a formidable way. My judgment taught me from the outset that it was folly to think of joining actively in the conflict; for, while I had but three white men in my quarters, and the colonists had returned to Monrovia, my New Sestros experience taught me the value of bondsmen’s backing.
Numerous engagements and captures took place by both parties, so that my doors were daily besieged by a crowd of wretches sent by Fana-Toro to be purchased for shipment. I declined the contract with firmness and constancy, but so importunate was the chief that I could not resist his desire that a Spanish factor might come within my limits with merchandise from Gallinas to purchase his prisoners. “He could do nothing with his foes,” he said, “when in his grasp, but slay or sell them.” The king’s enemy, on the opposite shore, disposed of his captives to Gallinas, and obtained supplies of powder and ball, while Fana-Toro, who had no vent for his prisoners, would have been destroyed without my assistance.