LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
The Native Attack[Frontispiece]
The Falling Spear: the Deadliest Native Elephant TrapFacing[2]
The Marauding Bull”[3]
Spear Weighing about Four Hundred Pounds”[3]
The Deadliest and Most Humane Method of Killing the African Elephant”[6]
The Brain Shot from Behind”[6]
The Position of the Brain when the Head is Viewed from the Front”[6]
Locating the Brain with the Side of the Head to the Sportsman”[6]
The Elephant, after the Brain Shot, Dies Quietly”[7]
The Angry Bull”[8]
Where the Windpipe enters the Body is the Spot to Hit”[8]
Elephant in the Country Most Suited to the Body Shot”[8]
With One Eye Shut”[8]
With Both Eyes Open”[8]
The Dotted Lines show the Position of the Heart and Lungs”[8]
With the Herd in the Pairing Season”[9]
Elephant Slinking Away, Warned of the Approach of Man by Honey-Guides”[14]
Medicine indeed!”[15]
He Shook His Head so Violently in the Death Throes that a Tusk Flew Out”[16]
A M’Boni Village”[17]
M’Sanya Bow and Poisoned Arrow”[18]
A Patriarch”[18]
“A Small Native Boy was in the Act of Pinking an Enormous Elephant””[19]
Poor Karamojans, showing Periwigs”[34]
Carrying the Ivory”[35]
Elephant Snare Net Set, but not yet Covered”[36]
Karamojan Warrior”[37]
That Lunatic Pyjalé Spears an Elephant”[44]
Longelly-Nymung, the Author’s Blood Brother”[56]
The Return of the Safari”[57]
“The Elephant nearly fell over with Fright””[64]
Watching the Northern Trail for the Returning Raiders”[65]
From the Look-out Hill”[72]
The “Elephant Cemetery””[73]
The Camp Chronicler”[76]
Abyssinian Slavers”[77]
A Shot from the Shoulders of a Tall Native”[86]
Telescope Tripod as Stand in High Grass”[87]
Elephant in the Upper Nile Swamp”[94]
In the Lado Enclave: White Rhino, Lion and Elephant”[95]
Looking into the Brilliantly Lit Open Space from the Twilight of the Forest”[102]
Suliemani bumps into his Bull”[104]
The Arrival in West Africa”[105]
A Colony of “Chimps” Fruit-gathering”[118]
Small Elephant of Liberia”[119]
The Palaver with the King”[124]
The Silent Town”[128]
Outside the Walls”[129]
Commanders of Regiments”[130]
Chiefs in Armour with Arrow-proof Quilts”[131]
An Enormous Man, Fully Seven Feet High, rose from a Pile of Rags”[132]
Whenever the King Sneezes, Coughs or Spits the Attendant Slaves break into Loud Wailing”[133]
In Buba Rei”[136]
A Foot Soldier”[137]
Lakkas, Shy and Nervous”[140]
Buba Gida’s Elephant Hunters”[141]
He Disappeared into the Thick Stuff”[146]
There He was now Facing Me”[147]
Gallery Forest and Baboon”[150]
Camp on Lake Léré”[151]
A Man-Eater, from whose Inside a Woman’s Bangle was taken”[152]
Native Decoys”[154]
Whistling Teal and Locust Storks”[154]
Rolling up Hippo”[154]
The Small Canoe Up-streaming”[155]
Hippopotamus in the Shallows”[156]
W., in the Small Canoe, runs into a Rising Hippo”[157]
Spur-winged Geese”[158]
Male Egyptian Geese in Breeding Season”[159]
Sky Black with Wildfowl”[160]
Rhino nearly have our Cook”[161]
Musgum Village”[162]
Mud Huts: Musgum”[163]
A Water Buck”[164]
Female Water Buck on Sandbank”[165]
Doe Kob and Calf well Camouflaged”[166]
Cow Hippo and Calf”[167]
Arab Spear for Ham-stringing Elephant”[168]
Portaging Canoes”[168]
The Kilangozi or Head Porter who carried this Tusk (148 lbs.) for Sixty-three Consecutive Marching Days”[169]
In Thick Stuff”[170]
Worthy Game”[170]
Some Retreating Cleverly Backwards and Receiving the Charging Animals’ Rushes on their Shields”[171]
Driven Out of the Reed Beds”[176]
“A Magnificent Male deliberately Turned and Stood Facing Me””[176]
Chasing Off an Intruder”[176]
Spotted!”[177]

THE WANDERINGS OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER

I
HUNTING THE BIG BULL ELEPHANT

The most interesting and exciting form of elephant-hunting is the pursuit of the solitary bull. These fine old patriarchs stand close on twelve feet high at the shoulder and weigh from twelve thousand to fourteen thousand pounds or more, and carry tusks from eighty to one hundred and eighty pounds each. They are of great age, probably a hundred or a hundred and fifty years old. These enormous animals spend their days in the densest part of the bush and their nights in destroying native plantations.

It is curious that an animal of such a size, and requiring such huge quantities of food, should trouble to eat ground nuts—or peanuts, as they are called in this country. Of course, he does not pick them up singly, but plucks up the plant, shakes off the loose earth and eats the roots with the nuts adhering to them. One can imagine the feelings of a native when he discovers that during the night his plantation has been visited by an elephant.

The dense part of the bush where the elephant passes his day is often within half a mile of his nightly depredations, and it is only through generations of experience that these wicked old animals are enabled to carry on their marauding life. Many bear with them the price of their experience in the shape of bullets and iron spear-heads; the natives set traps for them also, the deadliest one being the falling spear. Of all devices for killing elephants known to primitive man this is the most efficient. The head and shank of the spear are made by the native blacksmith, and the whole thing probably weighs about four hundred pounds and requires eight men to haul it into position. To set the trap a spot is chosen in the forest where an elephant-path passes under a suitable tree. A sapling of some twelve feet in length is then cut. One end is made to fit tightly into the socket of the spear-head and to the other end is attached a rope. The spear end of the rope is then placed over a high bough at a point directly over the path, while the other end is taken down to one side of the path, then across it and made fast to a kind of trigger mechanism. It is placed at such a height from the ground as will allow buffalo and antelope to pass under it but not a full-grown elephant. He will have to push it out of his way. This part of the rope is generally made of a bush vine or creeper. If all goes well, an elephant comes along the path, catches the creeper on his forehead or chest, pushes it sufficiently to snap it off, and then down hurtles the huge spear, descending point first with terrific force on neck, shoulder or ribs. I have seen taken from an old bull’s neck a piece of iron three feet long and almost eaten away. The wound had completely healed and it may have been there for years. If, however, the spear strikes the spine, death is instantaneous.

THE FALLING SPEAR: THE DEADLIEST NATIVE ELEPHANT TRAP.