The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter

by Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell

Although the sun was already half-way between the vertical and the sundown, we judged from the air of suppressed excitement about our guides that the game was not far off. This surmise proved to be correct, for about a mile from our camp we entered a large plantation literally ploughed up by elephant. My companion, who was naturally the most stoical of men, showed signs of great interest. This was his first safari in real wild country, and he had never yet seen a wild elephant. All the tracks were those of bulls, and some of them were colossal. Plenty of 63-in. and 64-in. feet had been there, and one with a circumference of 70 ins. This meant that the owner had a shoulder height not far short of 12 ft. We thought that if their tusks were in proportion to their feet we had indeed struck lucky.

The elephant had evidently been visiting this plantation nightly for some time, and the damage must have appeared terrible in the eyes of the owners. Bananas had been stripped, broken off, or completely uprooted. Sugar cane ceased to exist. Much of the millet had been eaten and more trampled down. But it was the ground-nuts which had suffered most. These nuts grow in clusters on the roots of a clover-like plant and are barely covered with soil. The shell is quite fragile and cracks on the least pressure being applied. When it is remembered that the foot of an elephant covers some two square feet of ground, and that he has four of them, and that when feeding he is seldom still for long, one begins faintly to appreciate the devastating effect two or three dozen of them would have on any garden.

Wasting no more time than was necessary to unravel the tracks, we were soon hot on the trail of a large bull. This trail led us among other gardens for a time, all similarly raided. But presently we left cultivation and plunged into high bush, fairly dense in parts, with long grass in the more open places. I stopped and told the crowd of natives who had tagged themselves on to us that no one was to follow us on any account, hinting with my rifle what would happen if they did so. Then we took with us one native and followed the trail. In a very short time we heard noises ahead of us. We stopped to listen. Sure enough it was elephant. Leaving the native, we walked carefully but rapidly toward the noises. It had been arranged between us that, as I had had previous experience of this game, I was to do the shooting, while my companion picked up what tips he could. I was leading when I suddenly saw through the clearer ground-stems of the bush the feet and parts of the legs of a motionless elephant. At the same time the noises we had been approaching appeared to come from beyond this quiet elephant. A glance through the leaves revealed nothing of his body. This was awkward. He was only a few paces distant, and the wind was all over the place, as is usual in thick stuff. If we ran into him and killed him the chances were that the shot would stampede the others. And then, he might have little or no ivory, although his legs and feet were massive enough. Relying on these elephants being quite familiar with human smell, I slipped round behind him, making plenty of unavoidable noise, and so got between him and the noisy bunch. We were rewarded for this manœuvre by reaching an opening in the bush which gave us not only a view of the noisy ones, but also a glance at our first friend as he moved off. This glance showed that he had short but thick ivory. I instantly put a shot into him and another into what appeared to be the largest among the noisy ones. Both were heart shots, as in this type of bush the lower half of an elephant is generally more clearly disclosed than the upper half. At the shot there was the usual terrific commotion, crashing trees and dust. Hot on the vanishing sterns we raced and jumped to a standstill, face to face with the first elephant I had fired at. Head on, there he stood, perfectly motionless, about ten yards away. To me, of course, he was merely a stricken animal and would topple over in a few moments; but to my companion he must have appeared quite sufficiently grim and menacing. I dropped him with the frontal brain shot, and showed my companion the direction and elevation for this shot, and then off we raced again on the trail of the others. We soon came upon the second elephant; he was down, but not yet quite dead. As he raised his head my companion tried a shot at his brain with his ·450, but failed to find it. I finished him with a ·318.

Leaving W. to wait for the natives, I tried on alone. I had not gone a quarter of a mile when I caught sight of a large bull elephant. He was moving towards an abandoned plantation through nice open stuff, and had I been able to reach him before he arrived at the densely bushed plantation I would have got him easily. But he reached and disappeared into the thick stuff without offering a chance. One would imagine that so massive an animal would leave behind him a passage clear enough for a man to pass along with ease and speed. This is by no means the case; everything rises up and closes in behind him again, and the trail remains almost as difficult to follow as before. I plunged into the horrible stuff and was soon close up to his stern. All I could do was to keep close up and wait until either we reached an open patch, when I might be able to range up alongside, or until he turned so as to give a chance at the brain. The rifle cartridge is not yet invented which will rake a full-grown elephant from stern to vitals.

HE DISAPPEARED INTO THE THICK STUFF.

THERE HE WAS NOW FACING ME.

As I stumbled and clambered and pushed and sweated along behind this fellow he suddenly stopped, stood for an instant, then threw his head up, backed sharply towards me and to my left, at the same time bringing his front end round with a swing, and there he was now facing me. This manœuvre was so unexpected and done so swiftly—all in one movement, as it were—as to be perfectly amazing. The transformation from that massive but rather ridiculous-looking stern to the much higher head, with its broad forehead, gleaming tusks and squirming trunk, was so sudden and disconcerting that I missed the brain and had barely time to reload and fire again—this time into his body and from the hip, with the muzzle perhaps only a few inches from his hide—as he rushed over the very spot I had occupied an instant before. Whew! But I thought I had him, although I suspected I had placed my shot too low. This was wrong, for I just then heard a crash and knew he was down. He was stone dead when I reached him. It was almost sundown, and I called up the natives. W. came with them. I was very exhausted and thirsty, having done no elephant hunting since before the war, so we demanded beer from the Lakkas, who were now our bosom friends. This was soon forthcoming from the bush, and very refreshing we both found it. We had three very large elephants, which would supply everyone with meat, and we expected that it would bring the natives in from other parts with further news of elephant. The ivory was very disappointing; it was of good quality, but very short and hollow. After the death of the first elephant, runners had gone to bring up the safari to a nearer village, so that we had not the long and deadly trek so common after an elephant hunt. In fact, we had barely gone a mile when we saw the welcome reflection of our fires on the trees, and we were soon as comfortable as possible.

After a substantial meal of buck-meat and rice, I asked W. what his impressions had been like. He told me the most vivid occurred when I fired the first shot. He said it appeared for all the world as if the elephant were motionless and the trees rushing past them.