THE MARAUDING BULL.
This spear, weighing about four hundred pounds and provided with a twelve-foot shaft, is hung head downwards from a tree. The rope, of vine or creeper, which holds it up, is stretched across an elephant-path, so that, in passing, the animal must snap it, liberating the spear to drop upon his own head or ribs.
To get within hearing distance of these old elephants is comparatively easy. You simply pick up the enormous tracks in the early morning and follow them into their stronghold. Sometimes, after going quite a short distance through fairly open forest, you begin to find it more and more difficult to force your way along. The tracks are still there, but everything gives way before the elephant and closes in behind him again. Here in the dark cool parts there are no flies, so that the flapping and banging of ears, the usual warning of an elephant’s presence, are lacking. The light begins to fail; air currents are non-existent, or so light they cannot be felt; the silence is profound. Monkeys and parrots are away in the more open parts. You may expect to hear your game at any moment now. You hope to see him, but your luck is in if you do. At the most you will see a high and ghostly stern flitting through the undergrowth, sometimes disconcertingly close in front of you. Literally nothing indicates the presence of such an enormous animal, and if it were not for the swish of the bush as it closes in behind him you would find it hard to believe that he was so close. His feet, softly cushioned with spongy gristle, make no sound. He seems to know that his stern is invulnerable alike to bullets or spears; while his huge ears, acting as sound-collecting discs, catch with their wide expanse the slightest sound of an enemy. He shows no sign of panic; there is no stampede as with younger elephants when they are disturbed; only a quiet, persistent flitting away. You may concentrate on going quietly; you may, and probably do, discard your leg gear in order to make less sound; you redouble your stealth; all in vain. He knows the game and will play hide-and-seek with you all day long and day after day. Not that this silent retreat is his only resource—by no means—he can in an instant become a roaring, headlong devil. The transformation from that silent, rakish, slinking stern to high-thrown head, gleaming tusks and whirling trunk, now advancing directly upon you, is a nerve test of the highest order. The noise is terrific. With his trunk he lashes the bushes. His great sides crash the trees down in every direction, dragging with them in their fall innumerable creepers. The whole forest is in an uproar. Much of this clatter the experienced hunter writes off as bluff, for after a short, sharp rush of this sort he will often come to a dead stop and listen intently. Here, again, his long experience has taught him that his enemy will now be in full retreat, and in most cases he is right. Certainly no native hunter waits to see, and most white men will find they have an almost uncontrollable desire to turn and flee, if only for a short way. With the deadliest of modern rifles it is only a very fleeting chance that one gets at his brain. The fact that the distance at which his head emerges from the masses of foliage is so small, and the time so short until he is right over you, in fact, makes this kind of hunting the most exciting and interesting of any in Africa, or the world, as I think most men who have experienced it will agree. If the shot at the brain is successful the monster falls and the hunter is rewarded with two magnificent tusks. And great will be the rejoicing among the natives at learning of his death, not only for the feast of meat, but also to know that their plantations have been rid of the marauding pest.
II
THE BRAIN SHOT AT ELEPHANT
The hunting of the African elephant is now restricted in so many ways that it is difficult for anyone to gain experience in the shooting of them. In most of the protectorates or dependencies of the European powers a licence to kill two in a year costs from £40 to £80. It therefore behoves the sportsman to make a good job of it when he does come face to face with these splendid animals.
Twenty-five years ago parts of Africa were still open to unrestricted hunting, and it is from a stock of experience—gathered during years devoted to this fascinating pursuit—that I am about to draw, in the hope that it may assist the sportsman to bring about a successful termination to his hunt and perhaps save some unfortunate animal from a lingering death due to wounds.
In hunting elephant, as in other things, what will suit one man may not suit another. Every hunter has different methods and uses different rifles. Some believe in the big bores, holding that the bigger the bore therefore the greater the shock. Others hold that the difference between the shock from a bullet of, say, 250 grs. and that from a bullet of, say, 500 grs. is so slight that, when exercised upon an animal of such bulk as an elephant, it amounts to nothing at all. And there is no end to the arguments and contentions brought forward by either side; therefore it should be borne in mind when reading the following instructions that they are merely the result of one individual’s personal experience and not the hard and fast rules of an exact science.