The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter

by Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell

On the morrow we stored our heavy loads in the headman’s hut and left for the bush. I took my camp-bed, and a ground-sheet which could be slung on a stick over it when it rained. These, with some plain food and 200 rounds of cartridges, comprised the loads, and, as we had plenty of followers, each man was lightly laden.

After passing through some plantations we were almost immediately in the virgin forest. We trekked hard all that day without seeing anything more interesting than monkeys and forest pig, but on the following day the country began to show signs of game. Bush-cow tracks became common, and we crossed several elephant paths, but devoid of recent tracks. This day I saw for the first time the comparatively tiny tracks of the pigmy hippo. In one place quite a herd of them had passed in the night. I gathered from the natives that they sometimes remained throughout the day in the dark pools of the smaller forest streams, but that usually they passed the daytime in the larger streams, when they would come up to breathe under the overhanging banks, only the nostrils emerging from the water. The reason for this extreme shyness appeared to be that the natives possessed firearms, the animals were quite defenceless, and the price of meat was high in all this stockless country. There exists such a dearth of flesh food that cannibalism is practised. Towards evening we reached a stream, on the bank of which it was decided we should camp. While a clearing was being made someone spotted a python coiled up on a rock a few feet out in the stream. They called me to come and shoot it. I ran up with my rifle to do so, and arrived just as the great snake was beginning to uncoil itself. First its head came, more and more of its body uncoiling behind it until the head reached the shore, the body bridging the space between it and the rock, where there still remained several coils. It landed in face of us, and I was waiting till enough of it had reached hard ground before firing. Meanwhile the boys, who had been clearing bush, rushed up with their slashers and attacked the huge serpent vigorously. It appeared to make no attempt to defend itself and was soon disabled by a few dozen blows on the head and neck. Although dead, the body continued to writhe with great force as it was being cut up into sections. All the natives were in high glee at securing so much good food. They said it was very good to eat, and certainly the flesh looked all right. When cooked, it became as white as boiled cod and seemed to lie in layers in the same way. The python was about 16 ft. long and contained the almost digested remains of one or more monkeys.

As I had killed two or three monkeys for them during the day the boys had a splendid feast with the python added. I noticed that they ate the python and roasted the monkeys whole to carry forward cold. I gathered that elephant might be expected next day.

It poured hard most of the night, and it was quite cold. Luckily, the forest was a splendid wind break, and but little rain reached my snug camp-bed. The boys made little shelters with under-bush, kept the fires going and ate python all night.

As soon as we were warmed up a bit next morning we started. Now, when the bush is wet and the cold of the early morning is still on, it is very hard to get a native to go ahead. Being naked, they come in for a shower bath every time they touch a branch. They simply loathe it. With difficulty one will eventually be pushed in front, but in a very short time he will pretend to have a thorn in his foot or some other pressing reason for stopping, and another has to be pushed forward. This continues until things heat up with the heightening of the sun. Not that you can see the sun when in this kind of forest; but, somehow, its heat rays penetrate the dense roof of foliage, although quite invisible.

We soon reached a lot of fresh elephant tracks. I examined them carefully, but could find no bull tracks at all. I could not even find one moderately big cow track. I was puzzled. All the tracks appeared to have been made by calves and half-grown animals. The boys were very pleased with them, however, and when I said I was not going to follow such small stuff they assured me that the smaller the track the bigger the teeth. This belief I have found to be common all over Africa, not only among native hunters, but also among whites. In my experience it has failed to stand the test of careful observation. But it is so widely held and so firmly believed in that it may be interesting to state the conclusion I have arrived at after very many opportunities of testing it. It is, of course, merely one man’s experience, but I give it for what it is worth.

Very large and bulky elephants appear to carry small tusks. Why they appear small is this: A tusk reaches a great length and a great lip diameter in a comparatively small number of years, but is very hollow and weighs light. At this stage the bearer is still young and slim, as with man. Therefore, his tusks look enormous in proportion to his general bulk. Therefore, however, his tusks gain but little either in length or girth, but the hollows fill up more and more with the decades; while his body continues to fill out, he stops chasing the cows, takes less and less exercise, becomes bulkier and sourer in the temper, suffers from gout, for all I know, gets a liver—for I have found them diseased in very old elephant—and now his tusks look small in proportion to his general size. To bear me out I would point to the enormously heavy tusk in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is only some 9 ft. long and only just over 24 ins. diameter, yet it weighs 234 lb. I have had heaps of tusks 9 ft. long and 23½ ins. in diameter which weighed a mere 100 lb. to 150 lb.

Pointing to a track which in any other country would have indicated a young cow, the headman said that its maker would be found to carry enormous tusks. I knew this was bunkum; all he wanted was meat. But it began to dawn on me that perhaps the elephant of Liberia were, like its hippo, a dwarf race. This decided me to go and have a look, so off we started.

The herd was a fairly large one and the ground soft, consequently the tracking was easy and the speed good. All were hungering for meat. What an appalling spectacle we would have been, as we raced along, for wise, calm, judicious eyes not out for blood—the natives all eager, searching the ground for tracks here and there like hounds on the trail. Some, more enterprising, chancing ahead to find the trail. A slap on the thigh signals this to the more tardy, while the pale-skinned man rests at the checks, the better to carry out his deadly work when that should begin. Watch him peering furtively through the bush in all directions, for human eye cannot pierce the dense foliage. Far better good ears than good eyes in this kind of country. Watch him during the checks listening. He imagines that those terrific vibrations his dull ears faintly gather may be caused by his quarry. How stupid he is to continue thinking so when surrounded by living evidence that it is not so, for not one of the native men has paused even for a second; they know monkeys when they hear them.

All the same, these were not ordinary “monks,” they were chimpanzee, a whole colony of them. They were very busy gathering fruit, and I pointed my rifle at one huge old man “chimp.” Like a flash my natives disappeared, and with such a clatter that the chimps heard and also disappeared. I had had no intention of firing, but I almost began to believe that I must have done it, so rapidly had the stage cleared. However, up came the headman, relieved that the chimps had gone. I asked him what was the matter. He told me then that chimps when in bands will attack if fired at. I don’t believe it, but I am glad to say I have never tested it. They looked such jolly old hairy people.