Part 13

It is astonishing how the colossal beast manages to plunge its way through the densest thicket despite the hindrance of its great horns. It does so by keeping its head well raised, so that the horn almost presses against the back of its massive neck, very much after the style of our European stag. But it is a riddle, in both cases, how they seem to be impeded so little.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

AN ELAND, JUST BEFORE I GAVE IT A FINISHING SHOT.]

I felt nearly sure that I could count on finding some gamesome old rhinoceroses up among the mountains, and my Wandorobo guides kept declaring that I should see some extraordinary horns. They were not wrong.

I strongly advise any one who contemplates betaking himself to the velt after big game to set about the enterprise in the true sporting spirit, making of it a really genuine contest between man and beast--a genuine duel--not an onslaught of the many upon the one. Many English writers support me in this, and they understand the claims of sport in this field as well as we Germans do at home. The English have instituted clearly defined rules which no sportsman may transgress. In truth, it is a lamentable thing to see the Sonntagsjäger importing himself with his unaccustomed rifle amid the wild life of Africa!

I shall always look back with satisfaction to the great Schöller expedition which I accompanied for some time in 1896. Not one of the natives, not one of the soldiers, ventured to shoot a single head of game throughout that expedition, even in those regions which until then had never been explored by Europeans. The most rigid control was exercised over them from start to finish. I have good grounds for saying that this spirit has prevailed far too little as a general thing in Africa.

I have invariably maintained discipline among my own followers, and they have always submitted to it. How difficult it is to deal with them, however, may be gathered from the following incident which I find recorded in my diary.

On the occasion of my last journey, a black soldier, an Askari, had been told off to attach himself for a time to my caravan. Presently I had to send him back to the military station at Kilimanjaro with a message. A number of my followers accompanied him, partly to fetch goods, etc., from my main camp, partly on various other missions that had to be attended to before we advanced farther into the velt. The Askari was provided, as usual, with a certain number of cartridges. When my men returned, a considerable time afterwards, I discovered quite accidentally that one of them bore marks on his body of having been brutally lashed with a whip. His back was covered with scars and open wounds. After the long-suffering manner of his kind, he had said nothing to me about it until his condition was revealed to me by chance--for, as he was only one of the hundred and fifty attached to my expedition, I might never have noticed it. It transpired that not long after he had set out the Askari, against orders, had shot big game and, among other animals, had bagged a giraffe, whose head--a valuable trophy--he had forced my bearers to carry for him to the fort. The particular bearer in question had quite rightly refused, whereupon the Askari had thrashed him most barbarously with a hippopotamus-hide whip--a sjambok. I need hardly say that he was suitably punished for this when I lodged a formal complaint against him. Had it not been for his ill-treatment of my bearer, however, I should never have heard of the Askari’s shooting the giraffe, for he had succeeded in terrorising all the men into silence.

Now we move onwards, following the rhinoceros-tracks up the hill-slopes, where they are clearly marked, and in among the steep ridges, until they elude us for a while in the wilderness. Presently we perceive not merely a hollowed-out path wrought in the soft stone by the tramplings of centuries, but also fresh traces of rhinoceroses that must have been left this very day. We are in for a first-rate hunt.

We have reached the higher ranges of the hills and are looking down upon the extensive, scantily-wooded slopes. Are we going to bag our game to-day?

I could produce an African day-book made up of high hopes and disappointments. Not, indeed, that returning empty-handed meant ill-humour and disappointment, or that I expected invariable good luck. But a day out in the tropics counts for at least a week in Europe, and I like to make the most of it. Then, too, I had to reserve my hunting for those hours when I could give myself up to it body and soul. How often while I have been on the march at the head of heavily laden caravans have the most tempting opportunities presented themselves to me, only to be resisted--fine chances for the record-breaker and irresponsible shot, but merely tantalising to me!

On we go through the wilderness, still upwards. I am the first European in these regions, which have much of novelty for my eyes. The great lichen-hung trees, the dense jungle, the wide plains, all charm me. The heat becomes more and more oppressive, and I and my followers are beginning to feel its effects. We are wearying for a halt, but we must lose no time, for we have still a long way before us, whether we return to our main camp or press onwards to that wooded hollow yonder, four hours’ march away, there to spend the night.

A vast panorama has been opening out in front of us. We have reached the summit of this first range of hills, and are looking down on another deep and extensive valley. My field-glasses enable me to descry in the far distance a herd of eland making their way down the hill, and two bush-buck grazing hard by a thicket. But these have no interest for us to-day: we are in pursuit of bigger game. Suddenly, an hour later, my men become excited. “Pharu, bwana!” they whisper to me from behind, pointing down towards a group of acacia trees on a plateau a few hundred paces away. True enough, there are two rhinoceroses. I perceive first one, then the other lumbering along, looking, doubtless, for a suitable resting-place. My field-glasses tell me that they are a pair, male and female, both furnished with big horns. Now for my plan of campaign. I have to make a wide circuit which will take me twenty-five minutes, moving over difficult ground.

Arrived at the point in question, I rejoice to see that the animals have not got far away from where I first spied them. The wind is favourable to me here, and there is little danger at this hour of its suddenly veering round. I examine my rifle carefully. It seems all right. My men crouch down by my order, and I advance stealthily alone.

I am under a spell now. The rest of the world has vanished from my consciousness. I look neither to right nor left. I have no thought for anything but my quarry and my gun. What will the beasts do? Will this be my last appearance as a hunter of big game? Is the rhinoceros family at last to have its revenge?

I have another look at them through my field-glasses. The bull has really fine horns; the cow good enough, but nothing special. I decide therefore to secure him alone if possible, for his flesh will provide food in plenty for my men. On I move, as noiselessly as possible, the wind still in my favour. Up on these heights the rhinoceroses miss their watchful friends the ox-peckers, so faithful to them elsewhere, to put them on their guard.

Often have my followers warned me of the presence of a “Ndege baya”--a bird of evil omen. Many of the African tribes seem to share the old superstitions of the Romans in regard to birds. Certainly one cannot help being impressed by the way in which the ox-peckers suddenly whizz through the air whenever one gets within range of buffalo or hippopotami.

The unexpected happens. The two huge beasts--how, I cannot tell--have become aware of my approach. As though moved by a common impulse, they swing round and stand for a moment motionless, as though carved in stone, their heads turned towards me.... They are two hundred paces away. Now I must show myself. Two things can happen: either they will both come for me full pelt, or else they will seek safety in flight. An instant later they are thundering down on me in their unwieldy fashion, but at an incredible pace. These are moments when your life hangs by a thread. Nothing can save you but a well-aimed bullet. This time my bullet finds its billet. It penetrates the neck of the leading animal--the cow, as always is the case--which, tumbling head foremost, just like a hare, drops as though dead. A wonderful sight, lasting but a second. The bull pulls up short, hesitates a moment, then swerves round, and with a wild snort goes tearing down the hill and out of sight. I keep my rifle levelled still at the female rhinoceros, for I have known cases when an animal has got up again suddenly, though mortally wounded, and done damage. But on this occasion the precaution proves needless. The bullet has done its work, and I become the possessor of two very fair specimens of rhinoceros horns.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

RHINOCEROSES SHED THEIR HORNS FROM TIME TO TIME AND DEVELOP NEW ONES. THE COW-RHINOCEROS IN THIS PHOTOGRAPH HAD SHED BOTH OF HERS. THE RHINOCEROS WHICH I BROUGHT HOME AND PRESENTED TO THE BERLIN ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS HAS RENEWED HER FRONT HORN SEVERAL TIMES.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A GOOD SPECIMEN.]

It was scarcely to be imagined that in the course of this same day I was to get within range of eight more rhinoceroses. It is hard to realise what numbers of them there are in these mountainous regions. It is a puzzle to me that this fact has not been proclaimed abroad in sporting books and become known to everybody. But then, what did we know, until a few years ago, of the existence of the okapi in Central Africa? How much do we know even now of its numbers? For that matter, who can tell us anything definite as to the quantities of walruses in the north, or the numbers of yaks in the Thibetan uplands, or of elks and of bears in the impenetrable Alaskan woods?

It seems to be the fate of the larger animals to be exterminated by traders who do not give away their knowledge of the resources of the hunting regions which they exploit. English and American authors, among them so high an authority as President Roosevelt, bear me out in this. I remember reading as a boy of a traveller, a fur-trader, who happened to hear of certain remote northern islands well stocked with the wild life he wanted. He kept the information to himself, and made a fortune out of the game he bagged; but when he quitted the islands their entire fauna had been wiped out. The same thing is now happening in Africa. Our only clue to the extent of the slaughtering of elephants now being carried on is furnished by the immense quantities of ivory that come on the market. So it is, too, with the slaughtering of whales and seals for the purposes of commerce. It is with them as with so many men--we shall begin to hear of them when they are dead.

But to come back to our rhinoceroses. Not long before sunset I saw another animal grazing peacefully on a ridge just below me, apparently finding the short grass growing there entirely to his taste. The monstrous outlines of the great beast munching away in among the jagged rocks stood out most strikingly in the red glow of the setting sun. It would have been no good to me to shoot him, for all my thoughts were set on finding a satisfactory camping-place for the night. Soon afterwards I came suddenly upon two others right in my path--a cow with a young one very nearly full grown. In a moment my men, who were a little behind, had skedaddled behind a ridge of rocks. I myself just managed to spring aside in time to escape the cow, putting a great boulder between us. Round she came after me, and I realised as never before the degree to which a man is handicapped by his boots in attempting thus to dodge an animal. It was a narrow escape, but in this case also a well-aimed bullet did the trick. We left the body where it lay, intending to come back next morning for the horns. Some minutes later, after scurrying downhill for a few hundred paces as quickly as we could, so as to avoid being overtaken by the night, we met three other rhinoceroses which evidently had not heard my shot ring out. They were standing on a grassy knoll in the midst of the valley which we had now reached, and did not make off until they saw us. By the stream, near which we pitched our camp for the night, we came upon two more among some bushes, and yet another rushing through a thicket which we had to traverse on our way to the waterside. In the night several others passed down the deep-trodden path to the stream, fortunately heralding their approach by loud, angry-sounding snorts.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A SNAPSHOT AT TWENTY PACES WITH A HAND-CAMERA, WHICH I HAD TO THROW AWAY THE NEXT SECOND, FOR THE “RHINO” MADE FOR ME AND ONLY TURNED ASIDE WHEN IT HAD GOT WITHIN THREE PACES OF ME!]

Many such nights have I spent out in the wild; but I would not now go through with such experiences very willingly, for I have heard tell of too many mishaps to other travellers under such conditions. That seasoned Rhenish sportsman Niedieck, for instance, in his interesting book Mit der Büchse in fünf Weltteilen, gives a striking account of a misadventure he met with in the Sudan, near the banks of the Nile. In very similar circumstances his camp was attacked by elephants during the night; he himself was badly injured, and one of his men nearly killed. This danger in regions where rhinoceroses or elephants are much hunted is by no means to be underestimated. Rather it should be taken to heart. According to the same writer, the elephants in Ceylon sometimes “go for” the travellers’ rest-houses erected by the Government and destroy them. These things have brought it home to me that I was in much greater peril of my life during those night encampments of mine on the velt and in primeval forests than I realised at the time.