Part 10

I set out one day in the early morning for this locality with a few of my men in company with the Wandorobo. After a long and fatiguing march in the heat of the sun, we encamp in the evening at one of the watering-places. To-day, to my surprise, there is quite a large supply of water, owing to rain last night. The elephants, with their unfailing instinct, have discovered the precious liquid. They have not merely drunk in the pool, but have also enjoyed a bath; their tracks and the colour and condition of the water show that clearly. Therefore we do not pitch our camp near the pool, but out in the velt at some distance away, so as not to interfere with the elephants in case they should be moved to return to the water.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

MY WANDOROBO GUIDES ON THE MARCH, WITH ALL THEIR “HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE” ON THEIR BACKS!]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A PARTY OF WANDOROBO HUNTERS COMING TO MY CAMP. I GOT SEVERAL OF THEM TO ACT FOR ME AS GUIDES.]

But the wily beasts do not come a second time, and we are obliged to await morning to follow their tracks in the hope of luck. The Wandorobo on ahead, I and two of my men following, make up the small caravan, while some of my other followers remain behind at the watering-place in a rough camp. I have provided myself with all essentials for two or three days, including a supply of water contained in double-lined water-tight sacks. For hour after hour we follow the tracks clearly defined upon the still damp surface of the velt. Presently they lead us through endless stretches of shrubs and acacia bushes and bow-string hemp, then through the dried-up beds of rain-pools now sprouting here and there with luxuriant vegetation. Then again we come to stretches of scorched grass, featureless save for the footsteps of the elephants. As we advance I am enabled to note how the animals feed themselves in this desert-like region, from which they never wander any great distance. Here, stamping with their mighty feet, they have smashed some young tree-trunks and shorn them of their twigs and branches; and there, with their trunks and tusks, they have torn the bark off larger trees in long strips or wider slices and consumed them. I observe, too, that they have torn the long sword-shaped hemp-stalks out of the ground, and after chewing them have dropped the fibres gleaming white where they lie in the sun. The sap in this plant is clearly food as well as drink to them. I see, too, that at certain points the elephants have gathered together for a while under an acacia tree, and have broken and devoured all its lower branches and twigs. At other places it is clear that they have made a longer halt, from the way in which the vegetation all around has been reduced to nothing. We go on and on, the mighty footsteps keeping us absorbed and excited. We know that the chances are all against our overtaking the elephants, but the pleasures of the chase are enough to keep up our zest. At any moment, perhaps, we may come up with our gigantic fugitives. Perhaps!

How different is the elephant’s case in Africa from what it is in India and Ceylon! In India it is almost a sacred animal; in Ceylon it is carefully guarded, and there is no uncertainty as to the way in which it will be killed. Here in Africa, however, its lot is to be the most sought-after big game on the face of the earth; but the hunter has to remember that he may be “hoist with his own petard,” for the elephant is ready for the fray and knows what awaits him. With these thoughts in my mind and the way clearer at every step, the Wandorobo move on and on unceasingly in front.

It is astonishing what a small supply of arms and utensils these sons of the velt take with them when starting out for journeys over Nyíka that may take weeks or months. Round their shoulders they carry a soft dressed skin, and, hung obliquely, a strap to which a few implements are attached, as well as a leathern pouch containing odds and ends. Their bow they hold in one hand, while their quivers, filled with poisoned arrows, are also fastened to their shoulders by a strap. In addition they carry a sword in a primitive kind of scabbard. Thus equipped they are ready to cope with all the dangers and discomforts of the velt, and succeed somehow in coming out of them victorious.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A FEAST OF HONEY. A HONEY-FINDER HAD LED US TO A HIVE, AND HERE MY MEN MAY BE SEEN REJOICING IN THE RESULTS.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

ACACIA TREE DENUDED BY ELEPHANTS.]

A DWARF KUDU (STREPSICEROS IMBERBIS, Blyth). I HAVE NEVER YET SUCCEEDED IN PHOTOGRAPHING THIS ANIMAL ALIVE AND IN FREEDOM. SO FAR I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO PHOTOGRAPH ONLY SPECIMENS WHICH I HAVE SHOT.]

How thoroughly the velt is known to them--every corner of it! To live on the velt for any time you must be adapted by nature to its conditions. We Europeans should find it as hard to become acclimatised to it as the Wandorobo would to the conditions of civilised life in Europe. The one thing they are like us in being unable to forego is water--and even that they can do without for longer than we can. The most important factor in their life as hunters is their knowledge where to get water at the different periods of the year. Their intimate acquaintance with the book of the velt is something beyond our faculty for reading print. Our experiences in our recent campaigns in South-West Africa have served to bring home the wonderful way in which the natives decipher and interpret the minutest indications to be found in the ground of the velt and know how to shape their course in accordance with them.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

GIRAFFE STUDIES (GIRAFFA SCHILLINGSI, Mtsch.) SECURED BY TELEPHOTO-LENS.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

MY MASAI DONKEYS ARRIVING IN CAMP, ESCORTED BY ARMED MEN. BEARERS ADVANCING TO MEET THEM AND TO UNBURDEN THEM OF THEIR LOADS.]

This had already been brought home to me in the regions through which I had travelled. You must have had the experience yourself to realise the degree to which civilised man has unlearnt the use of his eyes and ears. Whether it be a question of finding one’s bearings or deciding in which direction to go, or of sizing up the elephant-herds from their tracks, or of distinguishing the tracks of one kind of antelope from those of another, or of detecting some faint trace of blood telling us that some animal we are after has been wounded, or of knowing where and when we shall come to some water, or of discovering a bee’s nest with honey in it--in all such matters the native is as clever as we are stupid. We may make some progress in this kind of knowledge and capability, but we shall always be a bad second to the native-born hunter of the velt.

With such men to act as your guides you get to feel that traversing Nyíka is as safe as mountain-climbing under the guidance of skilled mountaineers. You get to feel that you cannot lose your way or get into difficulties about water. One reflection, however, should never be quite absent from your mind--that at any moment these guides of yours may abandon you. That misfortune has never happened to me, and it is not likely to happen when the natives are properly handled. Moreover, your friendship with them can sometimes be strengthened by the establishment of bonds of brotherhood. A time-honoured practice of this kind, held sacred by the natives, can be of the greatest benefit. I am strongly in favour of the observance of these praiseworthy native customs, and have always been most ready to go through with the ceremonies involved.

I endeavour to win the goodwill of my guides by keeping to the pace they set--an easy matter for me. In every other way also I take pains to fall in with the ways and habits of the Wandorobo, so as to attenuate that feeling of antagonism which my uncivilised friends necessarily harbour towards the European. I owe it to this, perhaps, that they did their utmost to find the elephant-tracks for me.

For hour after hour we continue our march, in and out, over velt and brushwood, coming every few hours to a watering-place, and meeting in the hollow of one valley an exceptionally large herd of oryx antelopes. Under cover of the brushwood, and favoured by the wind, I succeed in getting quite near this herd and thus in studying their movements close at hand.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

PEARL-HENS ON AN ACACIA TREE.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A PAIR OF GRANT’S GAZELLES TAKING TO FLIGHT. ]

In the bush, not far from these oryx antelopes, I come unexpectedly on a small herd of beautiful dwarf kudus. They take to flight, but reappear for a moment in a glade. This kind of sudden glimpse of these timid, pretty creatures is a real delight to one. Their great anxious eyes gaze inquiringly at the intruder, while their large ears stand forward in a way that gives a most curious aspect to their shapely heads. The colouring of their bodies accords in a most remarkable degree with their environment, and this accentuates the individuality of their heads, seen thus by the hunter. Off they scamper again now, in a series of extraordinarily long and high jumps, gathering speed as they go, and unexpectedly darting now in one direction, now in another. It is very exciting work tracking the fugitive kudu, and when it is a question of a single specimen you may very well mark it down in the end; but according to my own experience it is next to impossible to follow up a herd, for one animal after another breaks away from it, seeking safety on its own account.

Now we come again to an open grassy stretch of velt. With a sudden clatter of hoofs a herd of some thirty zebras some hundred paces off take to flight and escape unhurt by us into the security of a distant thicket. The older animals and the leaders of the herd keep looking backwards anxiously with outstretched necks. Even in the thicket their bright colouring makes them discernible at this hour of the day. But our attention is distracted now elsewhere. Far away on the horizon appear the unique outlines of a herd of giraffes. The timorous animals have noted our approach and are already making away--stopping at moments to glance at us--into a dense thorn-thicket. The wind favours us, so I quickly decide to make a detour to the right and cut them off. After a breathless run through the brushwood I succeed in getting within a few paces of one of the old members of the herd. This way of circumventing a herd of giraffes--my followers helping me by moving about all over the place, so as to put them off the scent--has not often proved successful with me, because it can only be managed when both wind and the formation of the country are in one’s favour.