Hunters three: Sport and adventure in South Africa

by Thomas Wallace Knox

I followed up the elephants, but it was no use; they had taken the alarm, and were making off through the forest a great deal faster than I could go.

When fully satisfied of the vanity of my pursuit I turned about and started for camp. It was too late for me to join my friends in the hippopotamus-hunt, and so I remained around camp until they arrived.

They had not much to boast of—only one hippo between them; but they proposed that we should try it again the next day, unless something better offered in the meantime. I assented, and added that I thought a change of game would be beneficial, as elephants were getting monotonous. When we went to bed we were fully possessed of the determination to pursue the hippos; but Africa is a good deal like other countries—you never know what a day will bring forth.

So it was in our case. While we were preparing for our day's work one of out runners came in and reported a herd of giraffes in the open country to the south. That was a new kind of game for us, and we determined to go for them. Giraffe-hunting requires some good work on horseback, and also requires good shooting.

We struck out in the direction indicated by the Kafirs, and about three miles from camp came upon the spoor of the giraffes. The country was thorny and stony, and pretty bad traveling generally, but we managed to get over it somehow or other. As we rose over the crest of a ridge I was ahead, and the first to catch sight of the animals; there were eight or ten of them in the group, and they were fully five hundred yards away from us. We struck into a gallop, paying little attention to the obstructions, and gained on them at a good rate; but it is the unexpected that always happens.

My horse had never seen a giraffe before, and when I came within about twenty yards of the herd he stopped and trembled with fear. I drove the spurs into him and managed to start him, but he was as scared as a country girl when she thinks she sees a ghost.

Harry passed me and ranged up close to the giraffes, which had materially widened the distance between me and them. The sight of the other horse gave mine confidence, and away he went as though he had suddenly found out that a giraffe is as harmless as a sheep. Harry picked out the very animal that I had selected for myself—a handsome cow. I picked out a bull which was running away from the herd and making a course for himself; he was a splendid fellow, and could go at great speed, covering as much ground with one bound of his long legs as my horse could cover with three.

When I got the bull separated from the herd my horse seemed to enter into the spirit of the thing, and dashed on through everything. I had brought along a Winchester, thinking it would be better for the business in hand than a Remington, and it did not take me long to find out that I was right. There was no possibility of dismounting to take aim, and, moreover, the giraffe was such a huge beast that it seemed as if he could be hit as easily as the side of a barn. But, after all, he is not very vulnerable, and a bullet must be well planted to disable him.

Ranging up alongside of him, and not more than ten yards away, I fired, hitting him somewhere in the neck. The shot did not seem to have any effect on him, except to turn him in my direction. Whether he intended to charge, or just made a movement of observation, I do not know; but his great head and neck towered above me like a huge tree over a small house. It seemed as if, by stooping and laying my face close to the horse's neck, I could have gone under him without touching his belly. I never realized that any animal which walked was as large as that beast.

I gave him four or five shots, planted as best I could plant them, but without any very serious effect. The next shot, however, brought him down, as it hit him in the fore-shoulder and smashed it all to pieces. When I fired that shot I do not think I was more than two yards from him. The horse stopped as the giraffe fell, and he looked the strange beast all over with the curiosity of a countryman at a menagerie. He did not seem so much alarmed at the appearance of the beast as he was at the powerful odor which arose from him. There is a strong smell about the giraffe, which doubtless the reader may have noticed when looking at these creatures in a show.