by Jay Cassell
The African elephant has recently been divided into a number of sub-species; but as within a century its range was continuous over nearly the whole continent south of the Sahara, and as it was given to such extensive occasional wanderings, it is probable that the examination of a sufficient series of specimens would show that on their confines these races grade into one another. In its essentials the beast is almost everywhere the same, although, of course, there must be variation of habit with any animal which exists throughout so wide and diversified a range of territory; for in one place it is found in high mountains, in another in a dry desert, in another in low-lying marshes or wet and dense forests.
In East Africa the old bulls are usually found singly or in small parties by themselves. These have the biggest tusks; the bulls in the prime of life, the herd bulls or breeding bulls, which keep in herds with the cows and calves, usually have smaller ivory. Sometimes, however, very old but vigorous bulls are found with the cows; and I am inclined to think that the ordinary herd bulls at times also keep by themselves, or at least in company with only a few cows, for at certain seasons, generally immediately after the rains, cows, most of them with calves, appear in great numbers at certain places, where only a few bulls are ever found. Where undisturbed elephant rest, and wander about at all times of the day and night, and feed without much regard to fixed hours. Morning or evening, noon or midnight, the herd may be on the move, or its members may be resting; yet, during the hottest hours of noon they seldom feed, and ordinarily stand almost still, resting—for elephant very rarely lie down unless sick. Where they are afraid of man, their only enemy, they come out to feed in thinly forested plains, or cultivated fields, when they do so at all, only at night, and before daybreak move back into the forest to rest. Elsewhere they sometimes spend the day in the open, in grass or low bush. Where we were, at this time, on Kenia, the elephants sometimes moved down at night to feed in the shambas, at the expense of the crops of the natives, and sometimes stayed in the forest, feeding by day or night on the branches they tore off the trees, or, occasionally, on the roots they grubbed up with their tusks. They work vast havoc among the young or small growth of a forest, and the readiness with which they uproot, overturn, or break off medium-sized trees coveys a striking impression of their enormous strength. I have seen a tree a foot in diameter thus uprooted and overturned.
The African elephant has never, like his Indian kinsman, been trained to man’s use. There is still hope that the feat may be performed; but hitherto its probable economic usefulness has for various reasons seemed so questionable that there has been scant encouragement to undergo the necessary expense and labor. Up to the present time the African elephant has yielded only his ivory as an asset of value. This, however, has been of such great value as wellnigh to bring about the mighty beast’s utter extermination. Ivory hunters and ivory traders have penetrated Africa to the haunts of the elephant since centuries before our era, and the elephant boundaries have been slowly receding throughout historic time; but during the century just passed its process has been immensely accelerated, until now there are but one or two out-of-the-way nooks of the Dark Continent to the neighborhood of which hunter and trader have not penetrated. Fortunately the civilized powers which now divide dominion over Africa have waked up in time, and there is at present no danger of the extermination of the lord of all four-footed creatures. Large reserves have been established on which various herds of elephants now live what is, at least for the time being, an entirely safe life. Furthermore, over great tracts of territory outside the reserves regulations have been promulgated which, if enforced as they are now enforced, will present any excessive diminution of the herds. In British East Africa, for instance, no cows are allowed to be shot save for special purposes, as for preservation in a museum, or to safeguard life and property; and no bulls with tusks weighing less than thirty pounds apiece. This renders safe almost all the females and an ample supply of breeding males. Too much praise cannot be given the governments and the individuals who have brought about this happy result; the credit belongs especially to England and to various Englishmen. It would be a veritable and most tragic calamity if the lordly elephant, the giant among existing four-footed creatures, should be permitted to vanish from the face of the earth.
But of course protection is not permanently possible over the greater part of that country which is well fitted for settlement; nor anywhere, if the herds grow too numerous. It would be not merely silly, but worse than silly, to try to stop all killing of elephants. The unchecked increase of any big and formidable wild beast, even though not a flesh eater, is incompatible with the existence of man when he has emerged from the state of lowest savagery. This is not a matter of theory, but of proved fact. In place after place in Africa where protection has been extended to hippopotamus or buffalo, rhinoceros or elephant, it has been found necessary to withdraw it because the protected animals did such damage to property, or became such menaces to human life. Among all four species cows with calves often attack men without provocation, and old bulls are at any time likely to become infected by a spirit of wanton and ferocious mischief and apt to become mankillers. I know settlers who tried to preserve the rhinoceros which they found living on their big farms, and who were obliged to abandon the attempt, and themselves to kill the rhinos because of repeated and wanton attacks on human beings by the latter. Where we were by Neri, a year or two before our visit, the rhinos had become so dangerous, killing one white man and several natives, that the District Commissioner who preceded Mr. Browne was forced to undertake a crusade against them, killing fifteen. Both in South Africa and on the Nile protection extended to hippopotamus has in places been wholly withdrawn because of the damage done by the beast to the crops of the natives, or because of their unprovoked assaults on canoes and boats. In one instance a last surviving hippo was protected for years, but finally grew bold because of immunity, killed a boy in sheer wantonness, and had to be himself slain. In Uganda the buffalo were for years protected, and grew so bold, killed so many natives, and ruined so many villages that they are now classed as vermin and their destruction in every way encouraged. In the very neighborhood where I was hunting at Kenia but six weeks before my coming, a cow buffalo had wandered down into the plains and run amuck, had attacked two villages, had killed a man and a boy, and had then been mobbed to death by the spearmen. Elephant, when in numbers, and when not possessed of the fear of man, are more impossible neighbors than hippo, rhino, or buffalo; but they are so eagerly sought after by ivory hunters that it is only rarely that they get the chance to become really dangerous to life, although in many places their ravages among the crops are severely felt by the unfortunate natives who live near them.
The chase of the elephant, if persistently followed, entails more fatigue and hardship than any other kind of African hunting. As regards risk, it is hard to say whether it is more or less dangerous than the chase of the lion and the buffalo. Both Cuninghame and Tarlton, men of wide experience, ranked elephant hunting, in point of danger, as nearly on the level with lion hunting, and as more dangerous than buffalo hunting; and all three kinds as far more dangerous than the chase of the rhino. Personally, I believe the actual conflict with a lion, where the conditions are the same, to be normally the more dangerous sport; though far greater demands are made by elephant hunting on the qualities of personal endurance and hardihood and resolute perseverance in the face of disappointment and difficulty. Buffalo, seemingly, do not charge as freely as elephant, but are more dangerous when they do charge. Rhino when hunted, though at times ugly customers, seem to me certainly less dangerous than the other three; but from sheer stupid truculence they are themselves apt to take the offensive in unexpected fashion, being far more prone to such aggression than are any of the others—man-eating lions always excepted.
Very few of the native tribes in Africa hunt the elephant systematically. But the ‘Ndorobo, the wild bush people of East Africa, sometimes catch young elephants in the pits they
dig with slow labor, and very rarely they kill one with a kind of harpoon. The ‘Ndorobo are doubtless in part descended from some primitive bush people, but in part also derive their blood from the more advanced tribes near which their wandering families happen to live; and they grade into the latter, by speech and through individuals who seem to stand half-way between. Thus we had with us two Masai ‘Ndorobo, true wild people, who spoke a bastard Masai; who had formerly hunted with Cuninghame, and who came to us because of their ancient friendship with him. These shy wood creatures were afraid to come to Neri by daylight, when we were camped there, but after dark crept to Cuninghame’s tent. Cuninghame gave them two fine red blankets, and put them to sleep in a little tent, keeping their spears in his own tent, as a matter of precaution to prevent their running away. The elder of the two, he informed me, would certainly have a fit of hysterics when we killed our elephant! Cuninghame was also joined by other old friends of former hunts, Kikuyu ‘Ndorobo these, who spoke Kikuyu like the people who cultivated the fields that covered the river-bottoms and hill-sides of the adjoining open country, and who were, indeed, merely outlying, forest-dwelling members of the lowland tribes. In the deep woods we met one old Dorobo, who had no connection with any more advanced tribe, whose sole belongings were his spear, skin cloak, and fire stick, and who lived purely on honey and game; unlike the bastard ‘Ndorobo, he was ornamented with neither paint nor grease. But the ‘Ndorobo who were our guides stood farther up in the social scale. The men passed most of their time in the forest, but up the mountain sides they had squalid huts on little clearings, with shambas, where their wives raised scanty crops. To the ‘Ndorobo, and to them alone, the vast, thick forest was an open book; without their aid as guides both Cuninghame and our own gun-bearers were at fault, and found their way around with great difficulty and slowness. The bush people had nothing in the way of clothing save a blanket over the shoulders, but wore the usual paint and grease and ornaments; each carried a spear which might have a long and narrow, or short and broad blade; two of them wore head-dresses of tripe—skull-caps made from the inside of a sheep’s stomach.
For two days after reaching our camp in the open glade on the mountain side it rained. We were glad of this, because it meant that the elephants would not be in the bamboos, and Cuninghame and the ‘Ndorobo went off to hunt for fresh signs. Cuninghame is as skilful an elephant hunter as can be found in Africa, and is one of the very few white men able to help even the wild bushmen at their work. By the afternoon of the second day they were fairly well satisfied as to the whereabouts of the quarry.
The following morning a fine rain was still falling when Cuninghame, Heller, and I started on our hunt but by noon it had stopped. Of course we went in single file and on foot; not even a bear hunter from the cane-brakes of the lower Mississippi could ride through that forest. We left our home camp standing, taking blankets and a coat and a change of underclothing for each of us, and two small Whymper tents, with enough food for three days; I also took my wash kit and a book from the Pigskin Library. First marched the ‘Ndorobo guides, each with his spear, his blanket round his shoulders, and a little bundle of corn and sweet potato. Then came Cuninghame, followed by his gun-bearer. Then I came, clad in khaki-colored flannel shirt and khaki trousers buttoning down the legs, with hob-nailed shoes and a thick slouch hat; I had intended to wear rubber-soled shoes, but the soaked ground was too slippery. My two gun-bearers followed, carrying the Holland and the Springfield. Then came Heller, at the head of a dozen porters and skinners; he and they were to fall behind when we actually struck fresh elephant spoor, but to follow our trail by the help of a Dorobo who was left with them.
For three hours our route lay along the edge of the woods. We climbed into and out of deep ravines in which groves of tree ferns clustered. We waded through streams of swift water, whose course was broken by cataract and rapid. We passed through shambas, and by the doors of little hamlets of thatched beehive huts. We met flocks of goats and hairy, fat-tailed sheep guarded by boys, strings of burden-bearing women stood meekly to one side to let us pass; parties of young men sauntered by, spear in hand.
Then we struck into the great forest, and in an instant the sun was shut from sight by the thick screen of wet foliage. It was a riot of twisted vines, interlacing the trees and bushes. Only the elephant paths, which, of every age, crossed and recrossed it hither and thither, made it passable. One of the chief difficulties in hunting elephants in the forest is that it is impossible to travel, except very slowly and with much noise, off these trails, so that it is sometimes very difficult to take advantage of the wind; and although the sight of the elephant is dull, both its sense of hearing and its sense of smell are exceedingly acute.
Hour after hour we worked our way onward through tangled forest and matted jungle. There was little sign of bird or animal life. A troop of long-haired black and white monkeys bounded away among the tree tops. Here and there brilliant flowers lightened the gloom. We ducked under vines and climbed over fallen timber. Poisonous nettles stung our hands. We were drenched by the wet boughs which we brushed aside. Mosses and ferns grew rank and close. The trees were of strange kinds. There were huge trees with little leaves, and small trees with big leaves. There were trees with bare, fleshy limbs, that writhed out through the neighboring branches, bearing sparse clusters of large frondage. In places the forest was low, the trees thirty or forty feet high, the bushes, that choked the ground between, fifteen or twenty feet high. In other places mighty monarchs of the wood, straight and tall, towered aloft to an immense height; among them were trees whose smooth, round boles were spotted like sycamores, while far above our heads their gracefully spreading branches were hung with vines like mistletoe and draped with Spanish moss; trees whose surfaces were corrugated and knotted as if they were made of bundles of great creepers; and giants whose buttressed trunks were four times a man’s length across.
Twice we got on elephant spoor, once of a single bull, once of a party of three. Then Cuninghame and the ‘Ndorobo redoubled their caution. They would minutely examine the fresh dung; and above all they continually tested the wind, scanning the tree tops, and lighting matches to see from the smoke what the eddies were near the ground. Each time after an hour’s stealthy stepping and crawling along the twisted trail a slight shift of the wind in the almost still air gave our scent to the game, and away it went before we could catch a glimpse of it; and we resumed our walk. The elephant paths led up hill and down—for the beasts are wonderful climbers—and wound in and out in every direction. They were marked by broken branches and the splintered and shattered trunks of smaller trees, especially where the elephant had stood and fed, trampling down the bushes for many yards around. Where they had crossed the marshy valleys they had punched big round holes, three feet deep, in the sticky mud.
As evening fell we pitched camp by the side of a little brook at the bottom of a ravine, and dined ravenously on bread, mutton, and tea. The air was keen, and under our blankets we slept in comfort until dawn. Breakfast was soon over and camp struck; and once more we began our cautious progress through the dim, cool archways of the mountain forest.
Two hours after leaving camp we came across the fresh trail of a small herd of perhaps ten or fifteen elephant cows and calves, but including two big herd bulls. At once we took up the trail. Cuninghame and his bush people consulted again and again, scanning every track and mark with minute attention. The signs showed that the elephants had fed in the shambas early in the night, had then returned to the mountain, and stood in one place resting for several hours, and had left this sleeping ground some time before we reached it. After we had followed the trail a short while we made the experiment of trying to force our own way through the jungle, so as to get the wind more favorable but our progress was too slow and noisy, and we returned to the path the elephants had beaten. Then the ‘Ndorobo went ahead, travelling noiselessly and at speed. One of them was clad in a white blanket, and another in a red one, which were conspicuous; b
ut they were too silent and cautious to let the beasts see them, and could tell exactly where they were and what they were doing by the sounds. When these trackers waited for us they would appear before us like ghosts; once one of them dropped down from the branches above, having climbed a tree with monkey-like ability to get a glimpse of the great game.
At last we could hear the elephants, and under Cuninghame’s lead we walked more cautiously than ever. The wind was right, and the trail of one elephant led close alongside that of the rest of the herd, and parallel thereto. It was about noon. The elephants moved slowly, and we listened to the boughs crack, and now and then to the curious internal rumblings of the great beasts. Carefully, every sense on the alert, we kept pace with them. My double-barrel was in my hands, and, wherever possible, as I followed the trail, I stepped in the huge footprints of the elephant, for where such a weight had pressed there were no sticks left to crack under my feet. It made our veins thrill thus for half an hour to creep stealthily along, but a few rods from the herd, never able to see it, because of the extreme denseness of the cover, but always hearing first one and then another of its members, and always trying to guess what each one might do, and keeping ceaselessly ready for whatever might befall. A flock of hornbills flew up with noisy clamor, but the elephants did not heed them.
At last we came in sight of the mighty game. The trail took a twist to one side, and there, thirty yards in front of us, we made out part of the gray and massive head of an elephant resting his tusks on the branches of a young tree. A couple of minutes passed before, by cautious scrutiny, we were able to tell whether the animal was a cow or a bull, and whether, if a bull, it carried heavy enough tusks. Then we saw that it was a big bull with good ivory. It turned its head in my direction and I saw its eye; and I fired a little to one side of the eye, at a spot which I thought would lead to the brain. I struck exactly where I aimed, but the head of an elephant is enormous and the brain small, and the bullet missed it. However, the shock momentarily stunned the beast. He stumbled forward, half falling, and as he recovered I fired with the second barrel, again aiming for the brain. This time the bullet sped true, and as I lowered the rifle from my shoulder, I saw the great lord of the forest come crashing to the ground.
