The ground was difficult to march over, as it was covered with creeping vines that every moment threatened to trip me up, and would most certainly do so in case I were trying to run from an enraged elephant. The elephant can crash through these creepers and undergrowth with the greatest ease; at all events, they do not seem to impede him in the least when he is pursuing the man who has fired at him and failed to bring him down. Should the man fall under such circumstances his life is not worth the value of a pin; he is trampled out of all semblance to humanity, and sometimes the infuriated beast will stand over him for an hour or more, long after life is extinct, trumpeting and bellowing, and renewing his assaults upon the shapeless remains of his adversary.
Lest the reader might suppose that this statement is a flight of fancy let me tell what happened to my friend M——, only a few months before the time of which I am writing. M—— and I were hunting on one of the tributaries of the Zambesi, and had bagged a goodly quantity of large game. I was one ahead of M—— on the score of elephants, and the time was approaching for us to break camp and return to the Boer country, whence we had started on our expedition.
One morning two elephants were reported not very far from our camp, and I suggested to M—— that he had better go out and shoot one in order to bring his account even with mine, and I added, jocularly, "If you can shoot them both I'll divide with you and keep our scores just equal. I don't want you to beat me and be able to boast about it after we get back to civilization."
"Oh, I'll take care of both of them," M—— answered, "and bring in a buffalo or two in addition."
Off he started with his tracker and gun-bearer, while I went out on the plain to the south of us, in the hope of bagging a koodoo or a gemsbok. I was gone until noon, or a little later.
When I came back to camp there was no one there but the cook, and two of the men, who were guarding the oxen. The cook told me that something terrible had happened to Mr. M——, and the rest of the men had gone out to where he had been hunting elephants.
I followed immediately, and found that poor M—— had shot at an elephant, but did not succeed in hitting him vitally. The animal fell to the ground, but was up again in a moment, so the tracker said. He wheeled about with wonderful quickness, considering his size and apparent awkwardness, and made straight for his assailant. M—— started to run and reach the shelter of the nearest tree; his foot caught in a creeping vine, and he fell prostrate. In a moment the elephant was upon him, pounding the unfortunate man with his trunk, trampling him underfoot, and impaling him with his tusks. The tracker watched him from the nearest shelter, but could do nothing. The elephant remained by the side of his victim for at least half an hour, when, hearing a trumpet-call from his companion, he moved away into the forest.
We brought M——'s body to the camp, and buried it with all the ceremony which our situation permitted. I at once gave orders for inspanning the oxen and starting on our homeward journey, and a sad journey it was, you may well believe.
But I am wandering from the thread of my story. I took the gun from the hands of Kalil, and crept cautiously along in the direction of the elephants. I must have been sixty yards away when I spied the back of one rising among the bushes; an enormous back it was, fully nine feet from the ground, but it was no use shooting at that part of the animal, and I withheld my fire. There are only a few places where you can hit an elephant and kill him at the first shot: one is directly in the center of the forehead, where the skull is a little thinner than elsewhere; another is between the eye and ear; and the third is in the vicinity of the heart, just back of the foreshoulder. If you hit him anywhere else he may travel some time carrying your lead, even though the body is penetrated from side to side; and if you hit him on the skull or any other bony place where your bullet glances off, the principal result of your shot is to enrage him. Mindful of all this, I watched and waited for a suitable chance, and in a little while I had it.
The elephant fed slowly along, and, fortunately for me, though not for him, he fed in my direction. He broke through the clump of bushes where he was feeding, and gave me a full view of his head, broadside on. I took aim between his eye and ear, and I took careful aim, you may be sure. Then I fired, and heard plainly the thud of the bullet as it reached its mark.