Explosive Bullets.
Of the means employed to accomplish the hunters’ ends let us say a few words. Explosive bullets we know have been universally condemned in human warfare on account of their barbarity, but against defenceless animals they are still held to be legitimate by so-called sportsmen. Thus, we read: “The impact causes the bullet to expand. Often it breaks into pieces or else takes a mushroom shape, the head in its tremendous velocity dragging and catching with its edges the flesh and viscera; and it often happens in the case of delicate animals that upon leaving the body it makes a hole as big as the crown of a hat.” That a sportsman writing for other sportsmen should feel no shame in making such a statement shows only how we take our morality from our surroundings, and how demoralising in this case the surroundings must be. After this, we cannot expect to find much chivalry displayed in this “the greatest and noblest” of sports, and we cannot be surprised to find the author telling us with pleasure how in pure wantonness he hid behind a tree within 10 yards of a female elephant and lodged a bullet in her heart. This, however, is outdone by an incident in another volume we remember, where we were told that the finest stag was shot by a certain Grand Duke, “while it was asleep, at 20 yards.” In fact, most big-game hunters seem—perhaps not unnaturally—to suffer from a similar want of chivalry. We find Mr. Seton-Karr, an authority on the subject, relating how one of his party imitated the young fawn’s cry of distress, when, as he says: “The immediate result was to entice within range numbers of Virginian deer or blacktail, most of them does, and eight fell victims to this somewhat unsportsmanlike device.” Whether such treachery is to be considered “unsportsmanlike” must depend on what meaning we attach to the word, but if it means “unlike a sportsman,” we fear the word is misused here.
Of the impartiality of the big-game hunter in his slaughter we have many instances. Any creature that can be shot is fitting game for him, and he delights in shooting it. One well-known writer gives the following list of creatures killed by him during six weeks:
“Five elephants, 2 lions (male), 8 leopards, 2 wart hogs, 11 great spotted hyænas, 7 striped hyænas, 4 oryx beisa antelope, 10 awal antelope, 2 common gazelle, 2 bottlenose antelope, 2 gerenuk antelope, 1 lesser koodoo, 18 dig-dig antelope, 4 bustard, 2 small bustard, 2 sand grouse, 3 genet, 14 guinea fowl, 22 partridge, 4 hares, 30 various.”
Thus 155 animals—mostly wholly unoffending creatures—were slaughtered by one man in six weeks. We are assured that on a second expedition much the same bag was made, but that he then got no elephants (which are rapidly being exterminated in that country). To further whet the appetite, the would-be young slaughterer is favoured with a view of a room in the mighty hunter’s house, which is decorated (or disfigured) apparently from floor to ceiling with the heads, skulls, and skins of these slaughtered animals—“trophies,” they are called—with a lavishness hardly inferior to that exhibited in a butcher’s or poulterer’s shop at the season when we commemorate the birth of Christ.
Temporary Remorse.
Of the actual cruelty involved in this kind of amusement—for it professes to be nothing more—we may give a few specimens:
“My victim, which I see only through a curtain of raindrops, visibly suffers, her flank swelling out abnormally and then subsiding; she is shot in the lungs. We pass round her in such a way that she shall not see us approach, but she seems more taken up with her sufferings than with us, and at the moment I am going to fire she falls down on the grass, still breathing. I draw near and give her the coup de grâce behind the ear. Around her is a large pool of blood, which the rain carries in a red stream towards the bottom of the little valley.
“It is the male at which I fired first of all. As I afterwards found, his shoulder was broken. Maddened by pain and his feeble efforts, the animal roars with rage, and, blowing furiously with his trunk, tears at everything within reach.… His cries and groans become so terrible that they must be heard a mile away.
“Poor beast!… Never have I been able to contemplate so near the death of an elephant in all its details. She is lying eight yards from us in the full sunlight at the edge of the water, which is tinged with red, and we look on in silence while life leaves the enormous body; her flank heaves, blood flows from breast and shoulder, her mouth opens and shuts, her lip trembles, tears flow from her eyes, her limbs quiver; with her trunk hanging down, her head low, she sways to right and left, then falls heavily on one side, shaking the ground and spattering blood in every direction.… All is over!