“Certainly not,” replied Mr. Hagenbeck. “The African elephants are just as clever, just as gentle, just as intelligent as the Asiatic elephants. There’s no difference between them; and I ought to know, for I have had to do with them for thirty years, and in only one year I have imported as many as seventy-six of them.”
HOW WILD BEASTS ARE CAPTURED.
Karl Hagenbeck and I stood in his beautiful gardens, beside the enclosure in which the lions and tigers spend the long, hot summer days so frequent in Hamburg. Most artistically this enclosure has been made to resemble an African desert. In the foreground there are bushes and a few small palm trees, whilst in the far-off distance there rise, towering to a blue tropical sky, grim mountains and sun-stricken rocks. There is thus conveyed to the mind an impression of the great Nubian deserts—an impression whose force and reality is strengthened by the appearance of the wild beasts themselves, basking in the heat of the sun, or restlessly prowling about the enclosure.
“I should very much like to hear, Mr. Hagenbeck,” said I, “everything you can tell me of the way in which your wild beasts are captured.”
“Well,” he replied, “I will tell you as much as I can. Let us begin with the animals from the deserts of Nubia, for I have hunting parties all over the world. I send out a special messenger, who goes provided with a lot of silver coin. Nubians know my courier, who goes on ahead of this special messenger. When the courier reaches Suakim, it is announced that my messenger is coming, and a great fête is proclaimed. Guns are fired off, tom-toms are beaten, and for at least two days before he arrives there are the greatest rejoicings. Then the people go out to meet him, and conduct him with great state to a place on the borders of the desert where they have built a zereba. My messenger then gives advance money to the hunters, who go into Abyssinia to buy horses for the great hunt. As soon as the whole party is collected, business begins. They are armed with assegais and long hunting-swords like the old German swords. They are as broad as your hand, sharp at both ends, and two handled. Men upon fast horses hunt up the animals. Large animals, such as elephants and rhinoceroses, with sucklings, are the best game. The hunters, forming a circle, follow them. Having caught a rhinoceros with its young one, a man jumps down from his horse and cuts the old beast in a vein, whilst some of the other men chase another animal in front to distract attention. Then the black fellow lets go the big rhinoceros, catches the little one, ties its legs, and after it has calmed down brings it to my collector, who is waiting for him in the zereba. The old one is killed, skinned, and eaten. The natives make their best shields from the hide. Elephants and giraffes are hunted in the same manner. 31 I have been describing to you chiefly the old method of hunting animals in Nubia. Of late years they generally use guns. The young animals are always brought up with goat’s milk.”
