Part 12

An experience I had in the Berlin Zoological Gardens illustrates this. I was called in to dispatch a huge bull-elephant which had to be killed, and which had rejected all the forms of poison that had been administered to it. In order to give it a quick and painless end I selected a newly invented elephant-rifle, calibre 10·75, loaded with 4 gr. of smokeless powder and a steel-capped bullet. On reflection the steel cap seemed to me too dangerous in the circumstances, so I had it filed off. I shall allow Professor Schmalz to describe what now happened: “The first shot entered the skin between the second and third ribs, and then simply went into splinters. It did no serious damage to the interior organs, and a stag thus wounded would merely take madly to flight. A piece of the cap reached the lung, but only a single splinter had penetrated, causing a slight flow of blood. The second shot was excellently placed, namely just below the root of the lung. It lacerated both the lung arteries and both the bronchial, and thus caused instant death.”

The fact that, with such a charge, a bullet fired at a distance of less than four yards should have gone into splinters in this way says more than one could in a long disquisition, and serves to explain the secret of many a mishap in the African wilderness.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

HEAD OF A BULL-ELEPHANT KILLED BY THE AUTHOR. NOW IN THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, BERLIN.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A FINE SPECIMEN OF A BULL-ELEPHANT KILLED BY THE AUTHOR.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

SOME AFRICAN TROPHIES. 1. SPLINTER FROM AN ELEPHANT-TUSK BROKEN OFF IN A ROCKY REGION. 2. PORTION OF A TREE BRANCH WHICH I FOUND STUCK IN THE JAW OF A CAPTURED LION. 3. PORTION OF A POISONED ARROW WHICH HAD BEEN STICKING IN AN ELEPHANT THAT I WAS TRACKING; ARROW OF THE KIND USED BY THE WAKAMBA HUNTERS. 4. NICKEL BULLET, PUT OUT OF SHAPE, WITH WHICH I BROUGHT DOWN AN ELEPHANT. 5. IRON BULLET USED BY A NATIVE. 6. POISONED DART FOUND STICKING IN THE WING OF A MARABOU.]

Rhinoceros-hunting

Many sportsmen of to-day have no idea what numbers of rhinoceroses there used to be in Germany in those distant epochs when the cave-dweller waged war with his primitive weapons against all the mighty animals of old--a war that came in the course of the centuries to take the shape of our modern sport.

The visitor to the zoological gardens, who knows nothing of “big game,” finds it hard perhaps to think of the great unwieldy “rhino” in this capacity. Yet I am continually being asked to tell about other experiences of my rhinoceros-hunting. I have given some already in With Flashlight and Rifle. Let me, then, devote this chapter to an account of some expeditions after the two-horned African rhinoceros--one of the most interesting, powerful, and dangerous beasts still living.

Rhinoceroses used to be set to fight with elephants in the arena in Rome in the time of the Emperors. It is interesting to note that, according to what I have often heard from natives, the two species have a marked antipathy to each other. It is recorded that both Indian and African rhinoceroses used to be brought to Europe alive. In our own days they are the greatest rarities in the animal market, and must be almost worth their weight in gold. Specimens of the three Indian varieties are now scarcely to be found, while the huge white rhinoceros of South Africa is almost extinct. The two-horned rhinoceros of East Africa is the only variety still to be met with in large numbers, and this also is on its way swiftly to extermination.

The kind of hunt I am going to tell of belongs to quite a primeval type, such as but few modern sportsmen have taken part in. But it will be a hunt with modern arms. It must have been a still finer thing to go after the great beast, as of old, spear in hand. That is a feeling I have always had. There is too little romance, too much mechanism, about our equipment. In this respect there is a great change from the kind of hunting known to antiquity.

It was strength pitted against strength then. Strength and skill and swiftness were what won men the day. Later came a time when mankind learnt a lesson from the serpent and improved on it, discharging poisoned darts from tightened bow-strings. The slightest wound from them brought death. Then there was another step in advance, and the hunter brought down his game at even greater ranges with bullets of lead and steel. A glance through the telescopic sight affixed to the perfected rifle of to-day, a gentle pressure with the finger, and the rhinoceros, all unconscious of its enemy in the distance, meets its end.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

RHINOCEROS HEADS.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

RHINOCEROS HEADS.]

But there is at least more danger and more romance for the modern hunter in this unequal strife when it takes place in a wilderness where bush and brushwood enforce a fight at close quarters. Then, if he doesn’t kill his beast outright on the spot, or if he has to deal with several at a time, the bravest man’s heart will have good reason to beat fast.

Now for our start.

We make our way up the side of a hill with the first rays of the tropical sun striking hot already on the earth. The country is wild, the ascent is difficult, and we have to dodge now this way, now that, to extricate ourselves from the rocky valley into which we have got. The vegetation all around us is rank and strange; strong grass up to our knees, and dense creepers and thorn-bushes retard our progress. Here are the mouldering trunks of giant trees uprooted by the wind, there living trees standing strong and unshaken. But as we advance we come gradually to a more arid stretch, and green vegetation gives place to a rocky region, broken into crevices and chasms. Here we find the rock-badger in hundreds. But the leaders have given their warning sort of whistle, and they are all off like lightning. It may be quite a long time before they reappear from the nooks and crannies to which they have fled. Lizards share these localities with them, and seem to exchange warnings of coming danger. A francolin flies up in front of us with a clatter of wings, reminding one very much of our own beautiful heath-cock. The “cliff-springer” that miniature African chamois, one of the loveliest of all the denizens of the wilderness, sometimes puts in an appearance too. It is a mystery how it manages to dart about from ridge to ridge as lightly as an india-rubber ball. If you examine through your field-glasses, you discover to your astonishment that they do not rest on their dainty hoofs like others of their kind, nor can they move about on them in the same fashion. They can only stand on the extreme points of them. It looks almost as though nature were trying to free a mammal from its bonds to mother earth, when you see the “cliff-springer” fly through the air from rock to rock. It would not astonish you to find that it had wings. Now here, now there, you hear its note of alarm, and then catch sight of it. It would be difficult to descry these animals at all, only that there are generally several of them together.... Deep-trodden paths of elephants and rhinoceroses cut through the wooded wilderness; paths used also by the heavy elands, which are fitted for existence alike in the deep valleys and high up on the highest mountain. I myself found their tracks at a height of over 6,000 feet, and so have all African mountain-climbers worthy of the name, from Hans Meyer, the first man to ascend Kilimanjaro, down to Uhlig, who, on the occasion of his latest expedition up to the Kibo, noted the presence of this giant among antelopes at a height of 15,000 feet.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

AN ELAND BULL (OREAS LIVINGSTONI, Sclat.). I MANAGED TO PREPARE THIS ANIMAL’S SKIN SUCCESSFULLY, AND IT MAY NOW BE SEEN IN FLAWLESS CONDITION IN THE BERLIN NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM. ]

It is strange to contrast the general disappearance of big game in all other parts of the earth with their endless profusion in those regions which the European has not yet opened out. I feel that it sounds almost incredible when I talk of having sighted hundreds of rhinoceroses with my own eyes: incredible to the average man, I mean, not to the student of such matters. Not until the mighty animal has been exterminated will the facts of its existence--in what numbers it throve, how it lived and how it came to die--become known to the public through its biographer. We have no time to trouble about the living nowadays.

For weeks I had not hunted a rhinoceros--I had had enough of them. I had need of none but very powerful specimens for my collection, and these were no more to be met with every day than a really fine roebuck in Germany. It is no mean achievement for the German sportsman to bag a really valuable roebuck. There are too many sportsmen competing for the prize--there must be more than half a million of us in all!

It is the same with really fine specimens of the two-horned bull-rhinoceros. It is curious, by the way, to note that, as with so many other kinds of wild animals, the cow-rhinoceros is furnished with longer and more striking-looking horns than the bull, though the latter’s are thicker and stronger, and in this respect more imposing. The length of the horns of a full-grown cow-rhinoceros in East Africa is sometimes enormous--surpassed only by those of the white rhinoceroses of the South, now almost extinct. The British Museum contains specimens measuring as much as 53½ inches. I remember well the doubts I entertained about a 54-inch horn which I saw on sale in Zanzibar ten years ago, and was tempted to buy. Such a growth seemed to me then incredible, and several old residents who ought to have known something about it fortified me in my belief that the Indian dealer had “faked” it somehow, and increased its length artificially. It might still be lying in his dimly lit shop instead of forming part of my collection, only that on my first expedition into the interior I saw for myself other rhinoceroses with horns almost as long, and on returning to Zanzibar at once effected its purchase. A second horn of equal length, but already half decayed when it was found on the velt, came into my possession through the kindness of a friend. I myself killed one cow-rhinoceros with very remarkable horns, but not so long as these.

There is something peculiarly formidable and menacing about these weapons of the rhinoceros. Not that they really make him a more dangerous customer for the sportsman to tackle, but they certainly give that impression. The thought of being impaled, run through, by that ferocious dagger is by no means pleasant.

In something of the same way, a stag with splendid antlers, a great maned lion, or a tremendous bull-elephant sends up the sportsman’s zest to fever-pitch.