Great White Hunters

Copyright 2015 Don Caswell

This is a collection of stories distilled from the writings of fifteen different adventurous authors, all now long dead. Every effort has been made to be true to the original content while only making minor use of extracts from their writings. Any perceived errors or omissions are a consequence of summarising an adventurous life into two or three thousand words. There is no intention to mislead or change documented history in any manner or degree. I hope the reader finds these summaries interesting enough to source and read the original books. There is some wonderful reading to be had in the writings of the Great White Hunters. .

Aussiehunter Edition License Notes This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Prologue Chapter 1 - J. H. Patterson Chapter 2 - John Burger Chapter 3 - Karamojo Bell Chapter 4 - Baron Bror von Blixen Chapter 5 - Jim Corbett Chapter 6 - Blayney Percival Chapter 7 - Frederick Courtney Selous Chapter 8 - Edouard Foa Chapter 9 - Kenneth Anderson Chapter 10 - John Hunter Chapter 11 - Major Robert Foran Chapter 12 - Harry Wolhuter Chapter 13 - Major A E Wardrop Chapter 14 - Denis Lyell Chapter 15 - David Blunt About Don Caswell

Acknowledgements

Kathy for her support and help in all things. In particular for her Adobe Photoshop skills used in the artwork of the cover.

Grizz, my old hunting buddy, for supplying the zebra skin and his Heym 470 Nitro Express used on the cover.

David Grayling for unearthing so many old books by the famous great white hunters.

Prologue

The golden age of hunting is gone and with it the Great White Hunters. Modern hunters can only look back with envy to an era where game abounded and hunting was a socially accepted sport with few restrictions. The term Great White Hunter is evocative of the Victorian era at the height of the British Empire. From a modern perspective, the writings of these famous adventurers and hunters of old can give an impression of racism. In general, though, I do not think that is really the case. While the term "native" is used a lot, I believe it is intended to be taken as its literal, dictionary meaning and not from a tarnished modern slant. Almost universally, these hunters of old wrote with admiration and respect for their "native" trackers, gun bearers and servants general, without whom the adventures could not have been had and the books subsequently written. Anyway, while various connotations that can be drawn from that era of blatant colonialism, it has to be acknowledged that the term Great White Hunter is not necessarily a universally complimentary one. However, looking past the politics and prejudices, my interest is in the hunters and the hunting and I limit my interest to that narrow focus. For my purposes, the Great White Hunters epitomise the more admirable aspects of human character. That is bravery, perseverance and a strong sense of duty. Combine that with the vast abundance of game at the time, and the birth of the modern smokeless calibres, particularly the famous Nitro-Express big game cartridges, and you have all the ingredients for some wonderful stories.

Chapter One - Patterson

J. H. Patterson sailed into Mombasa harbour on March 1st, 1898. He had come to take up a position as engineer on the construction of the Uganda railway. On reporting to the railway headquarters he was told that he would receive instructions in a day or two. Undaunted, Patterson found a convenient shady spot and pitched his tent. A week later found him still waiting and getting impatient as he had by this time seen all the sights that Mombasa had to offer. Fortunately that day he received his posting. He was to take over construction of the line at the railhead of Tsavo, over two hundred kilometres inland. Additionally, and although he did not know it at the time, he was to gain fame for his participation in a classic big game hunting adventure. The train arrived late in the evening at its destination. The next morning Patterson was up at first light and eager to see just what sort of place he had come to. His first impression on walking out of the rough hut in which he had spent the night was that of being surrounded by a dense growth of impenetrable scrub. On fighting through the thick, clawing bush and climbing a nearby hill Patterson found that his first impressions were not that far wrong. For as far as the eye could see the country was covered by low gnarled trees and thick undergrowth composed largely of wait-a-while thorns. The one redeeming feature of the depressing, sun-scorched country was the cool-flowing Tsavo River and the narrow belt of green trees that bordered it. Patterson had his servants pitch his camp nearby. The area was a scene of great activity with thousands of Indian and African labourers busy on pushing the railway onwards with all haste. Patterson’s job was to build a permanent bridge across the river before the wet season rains swept away the temporary structure that had been thrown across the Tsavo. Shortly after Patterson’s arrival several of the Indian labourers disappeared. Reports from other labourers that the missing men had been taken at night by lions were at first discounted. Murder was not an uncommon occurrence amongst the massed labourers and bodies were quickly disposed of by hyenas and other scavengers. Three weeks later, however, Patterson was woken at dawn with the news that one of his men had been taken by a lion during the night. He hastened to the man’s camp and could plainly see the confirming evidence in the fine dust around the tent. Patterson followed the blood trail and drag marks until, not far away, he came across the gruesome remains of the unfortunate Sikh. He resolved then and there that he would have to do everything in his power to kill the beasts responsible. That night, armed with his 303 rifle and 12 gauge shotgun he sat in a tree close-by where the remains had been found. Not long after taking up his position at dusk he was excited and a little frightened to hear the awesome roaring of the lions coming closer and closer. Suddenly the lions’ calling ceased and Patterson’s hopes were at fever pitch as he realized that this meant that the lions were stalking. His hopes were dashed however, when he heard the roar of the lions and pitiful screaming from a near-by camp. It was a dark night and with no means of illumination it would have been suicide to try to render aid, so the despondent Patterson sat in his uncomfortable perch until dawn. This was the first of many similar nights for Patterson. With a workforce of thousands living in tents scattered over thirteen kilometres of bush, the lions proved impossible to come to terms with. Among the superstitious labourers, the lions soon took on the reputations of devils as all attempts to eliminate them failed. The killers became more and more daring and had no regard for the traditional repellents of thorn barriers and fire. To add to the horror of the poor frightened men cowering in flimsy tents, the lions soon adopted the habit of dragging their victims but a few yards from their sleeping place before eating them. The survivors were subjected to the squelching of torn flesh and crunching bones as the man-eaters purred in pleasure over a meal that could last several hours. The reign of terror lasted over nine months and actually halted work on the railway for three weeks. The gravity of the situation was such that it received mention in the House of Lords, one of the few cases to do so. In all, twenty-eight Indian labourers and uncounted Africans were killed and eaten. The situation became all the more dreadful for Patterson and his workforce of several hundred when the main group of labourers moved camp further up the ever-progressing railway line. One night Patterson and a friend had their first contact with the man-eaters and a close shave with death. They had elected to spend the night in a goods wagon close to where several attacks had recently occurred. The door on the wagon was of the stable-type with only the bottom half shut. Straining his eyes in the dark and waiting to hear some indication that the lions were after a tethered bait cow, Patterson suddenly noticed a movement right in front of him. With a rush, the man-eater came at the hunters. Both fired at once. The flash and boom of the rifles turned the attack at the last moment. During this time Patterson had to keep up with a huge workload in addition to his demanding attempts to locate and kill the man-eaters. Apart from the night time sitting up in trees and other precarious locations Patterson also tried to find the lions during daylight hours when opportunity permitted. This entailed crawling through the thick undergrowth hoping, and yet dreading, to meet the man-eaters. Occasionally he would find gruesome remains of the lions’ kills. On top of all this, in a separate incident, that is in itself the stuff of ripping yarns, Patterson single-handedly faced 160 of his mutinous labourers who had signed a pact to murder him! In a very tense situation, he narrowly escaped his intended fate. The horror continued and the men took desperate actions to try and find a secure place to sleep. The camps presented what, under happier circumstances, would have been a comical sight. The bigger trees were festooned with beds lashed to any convenient branch while the tree itself was surrounded by a thick, high fence of thorn tree branches. Others slept on top of water towers or even in pits covered over with sleepers and rails. But still, the toll mounted. The District Officer notified Patterson that he was coming up with a small squad of armed sepoy guards to help in the hunt. Patterson was expecting the squad to arrive on the afternoon train and was looking forward to the company of the District Officer, one Mr Whitehead, at dinner. However, Whitehead failed to show up and Patterson assumed that there had been some delay and that the askaris would arrive the next day. During his lone dinner, he heard a couple of shots but thought no more of it as shots were often fired at night by nervous guards. After dinner, he took up a position for a sit-up and not long after heard the lion approach to within sixty metres and commence feeding. As his eyes got more accustomed to the dark Patterson could just make out the reflected glow of the lions’ eyes. He attempted a difficult shot that had no effect other than to make the lions remove their meal into cover. He was puzzled by the lions’ feeding as there had been none of the usual, heart•rending uproar as they dragged off another victim. Patterson assumed that some passing local had been grabbed by the man-eaters. At first light, he climbed down and went to investigate the scene of the crime. As he approached the spot a pale and dishevelled Mr Whitehead staggered out of the bush. The train had arrived late and Whitehead and his sergeant had set out with a lantern to find Patterson. One of the man-eaters had attacked them and, after mauling Whitehead, had carried off the askari despite the shots fired at it by the wounded officer. It was the unfortunate askari that Patterson had heard being eaten by the killers. Patterson had built a massive trap constructed from railway sleepers and the heavy rail lines. It had two compartments, the trap itself and a separate structure to hold the “bait”, two of the sepoys. The men were each armed with a Martini rifle and a liberal supply of ammunition and were on strict instructions to shoot as soon as the lion entered the trap. At nine that evening Patterson was overjoyed to hear the heavy trap door clatter shut. But he was puzzled when no shots were fired when it was plain to hear the lion raging in the trap. The sepoys had in fact been scared witless by the rush of the lion into the trap and its subsequent rage, viewed from a distance of a metre or two, had completely unnerved them. However, the two men responded to shouted encouragement and commenced a heavy fusillade. Patterson and everyone else within several hundred metres sought cover as heavy bullets seemed to fly in all directions. Incredibly, the lion was not killed and, in fact, the only outcome of the sepoys’ barrage was to shoot away enough of one of the heavy wooden bars to allow the lion to escape! Patterson could not believe that the sepoys, who were close enough to have prodded their rifle barrels into the lion’s body, could have failed to shoot it with any of the shots they fired. Different officers of the colony came and assisted Patterson at times but with no effect. Most voiced concern at Patterson’s choice of a “light” 303 and one visitor lent him a heavy double rifle. Shortly after this, a golden opportunity presented itself when one of the man-eaters made a kill in daylight. After narrowly missing a labourer the beast had contented itself with killing one of the pack donkeys. Patterson quickly reconnoitred around the patch of scrub in which the lion was breakfasting and, after selecting the best spot for an ambush, arranged for his men to form a beat. Patterson expected the lion to retreat along a particular path and so chose to lay in wait on the ground behind a small anthill. He waited nervously for the beat to begin and was thrilled when within seconds of the din starting a huge maneless lion emerged from cover and proceeded calmly along the path toward the ambush point. The beast was occasionally stopping to look back over its shoulder and so failed to notice the poorly concealed hunter. After waiting until the lion was twelve metres away he moved slightly in order to get his heavy rifle on target. The lion immediately noticed the movement and itself took up a very aggressive pose and commenced to growl fiercely. Patterson was supremely confident as he aimed between the beast’s eyes and squeezed the trigger. He was aghast when the only result was the dull click of a misfire. Patterson was receiving a vivid lesson in the disadvantages of using an untried, borrowed weapon in a dangerous situation. The hunter was so shocked at this turn of events that for a moment forgot that he was, in fact, shouldering a double and so lowered the rifle with the intention of loading another round. The beaters were now very close at hand. After some indecision, the lion turned and headed for cover. Patterson by this time had recovered enough of his wits to snap the rifle to his shoulder and give the lion the left barrel. The wounded lion’s trail was followed but eventually lost on stony ground. The dejected Patterson trudged back to camp and decided to sit that night over the dead donkey. There was no suitable tree anywhere near the kill so Patterson took up his seat on a plank hung from beneath a big tripod erected three metres from the kill. His gunbearer and other helpers were aghast at this dangerous, flimsy position. As hoped, a lion returned to the spot after nightfall. Patterson’s pleasure soon turned to concern when it became apparent the lion was intent on claiming him and ignoring the donkey. For over two hours the lion crept around and around the frail platform that Patterson sat in, getting ever closer. Patterson was experiencing a severe case of the horrors as he realised that the lion could easily knock him to the ground. He sat perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe and with every sense alert. At the height of this tension, Patterson received a solid whack on the back of the head. The shock of it nearly paralysed him with fright and he came close to falling. It was a wayward owl that had flown into the intrepid hunter! The lion responded to the hunter’s sudden start by growling and coming up beneath him. The indistinct body of the lion stood out as a shade lighter than the background. Patterson fired down at the vague target. The lion responded with a mighty roar and commenced thrashing about in the undergrowth. With immense relief, Patterson realised that the lion was hard hit and, determined to finish him, kept firing down at the thrashing beast. The lion’s roars subsided and, with a final sighing moan all became quiet. The sudden cessation of sound brought eager calls from the surrounding listeners. In a short space of time scores of flaming torches were converging on the spot and the night throbbed with the beat of drums, blowing horns and the yells of happy and relieved men. To Patterson’s surprise, the gathering crowd threw themselves to the ground in salute to him and called him “saviour” and “blessed one” in their own tongues. The dead lion was a big healthy specimen with a coat much scratched by his habit of forcing through the thorn bush barriers to reach his victims. The other man-eater continued to roam and menace all and sundry. An opportunity to shoot the remaining lion came after it had killed a small flock of goats. Patterson had a strong scaffold erected beside the carcasses and once again took his seat at sunset, accompanied by his gunbearer. The lion returned and in passing almost beneath the waiting hunters allowed Patterson to fire both barrels of his shotgun, loaded with slugs, into its back. The impact knocked the lion to the ground, but only for a moment, as it quickly recovered its feet and disappeared into the surrounding bush. As soon as there was sufficient light the two hunters took up the blood trail. Once again, however, the trail petered out and was lost on rocky terrain. Patterson was sorry to have missed recovering the trophy but felt hopeful the animal would at least die of its wounds. Patterson insisted that his men maintain their precautions and it proved to be a wise move. Ten days after having been wounded the man-eater reappeared and only just missed in an attempt to procure another victim. Luckily all the residents of the tents in the particular camp managed to scramble up to safety in a nearby tree. The next evening Patterson and his gun bearer sat in the same tree keeping watch in shifts. Later in the evening as the bearer kept watch Patterson awoke with foreboding from his sleep. His gunbearer was awake and alert and told his master that he had seen and heard nothing of the lion. Nevertheless, Patterson scanned the area around them. Suddenly, in the dark, the shape of the man-eater resolved itself as it slowly stalked the two hunters. Patterson waited until the man-eater was close enough, at about eighteen metres, to be confident of hitting it in the moonlight. His first shot smacked home into the lion’s chest and before it could escape into cover Patterson managed to hit again. He then had to sit impatiently through the rest of the night. First light once again saw the two hunters following the blood trail of the wounded man-eater and a plentiful blood trail it was. Patterson was confident that this time the lion would not escape him. A fierce growl warned the followers of the waiting lion’s presence. Patterson fired and hit the crouched lion which responded with a mighty roar and charged. Patterson fired again and knocked the animal down. However it quickly regained its feet and, although slowed, pressed on with its attack. Again he fired but to no effect on the advancing lion. Patterson discarded his 303 and reached behind him for the spare rifle held by the gunbearer only to find that both the rifle and the gunbearer were some distance away and well up a tree. Patterson had no option but to emulate his gunbearer. Fortunately, the lion had been slowed by a broken leg and grievous body wounds otherwise Patterson would never have made it to safety. The lion, despite its injuries, was close on his heels. Patterson grabbed the 450 Martini from the gunbearer and fired a shot which knocked the big cat to the ground. The lion lay motionless. Patterson foolishly leapt to the ground and approached it. When approached the “dead” lion suddenly came very much to life again and, regaining its feet, leapt at the hunter. Luckily a shot into its chest from the single shot Martini put the beast down for keeps. Among its many wounds were those of the two twelve gauge slugs fired ten days previous, which had only penetrated a little way into the lion’s heavily muscled back. It was another big male with a much-scratched hide. The last of the Tsavo man-eaters was dead and the reign of terror was over. Chapter Two - Burger

John Burger was born in 1887 on the Great Karoo of South Africa. The conclusion of the Boer War saw the Burger family join their fellow Boer farmers in the Great Trek. This modern-day odyssey saw a column of covered wagons leave the Orange Free State and head across the forbidding Kalahari Desert for Southern Rhodesia. The trek was a harrowing ordeal of four months duration and it toughened the teenage farm lad. It was here that he first saw cape buffalo, although the sightings were limited to the thousand upon thousand of rotting carcasses. A widespread rinderpest epidemic had decimated the game and stock of Southern Africa. He was, in time, to become more than well acquainted with live buffalo and went on to be one of the few men who can lay claim to having taken more than one thousand, of what is often acknowledged to be, the most dangerous big game animal on earth. Within months of their arrival in Rhodesia, the full weight of responsibility for the family fell upon John Burger’s young shoulders with the death of his father. He considered that period, as a destitute, half-starved refugee, to have been the most difficult time in his life. He was lucky to find work as an apprentice but was soon lured to hunting by the prospect of better money, and adventure. By the time he was seventeen he had met and hunted with all the notable hunters then living in Rhodesia. These included the likes of Selous, Westhuizen and van Rooyen. Mickey Norton was a particular friend who guided the novice in his early hunting. Norton himself ranks as one of the all-time great elephant hunters with a score of over 4,200 He was a towering man, six feet four inches in height, but of jovial and kindly disposition, always ready to pull an educational joke on any new chum, as Burger soon discovered. Norton asked the lad to go and shoot some meat for the camp, a request that the boy eagerly agreed to. Mickey Norton presented Burger with his favourite 8mm rifle after carefully loading it and going into great detail on the sighting of the weapon. Alter a five-kilometre stalk the young hunter found a herd of antelope and prepared to collect some meat. To his dismay, he discovered that all five rounds were duds. It was an angry young fellow who strode back into camp some hours later. Norton waved off his protestations and offered only a brief and laconic explanation, “Never let another man load your guns for you, my boy.” During the First World War Burger was a scout and meat hunter for the army. For four years the demands of a meat-hungry army gave him the opportunity to take a great range of game animals and gain valuable hunting experience. It also signalled the beginning of an obsession with buffalo hunting. In the course of his buffalo hunting, he witnessed some tragic and bloody encounters with these formidable beasts, not excluding himself. In fact, he had some very narrow escapes. One encounter he particularly remembered, for he had lain stunned and bloody while his trackers stood around and eulogised their master, believing him dead. It had all started quite innocuously on the last day of a long hunt. The camp was broken and packed and, as a last minute chore, Burger had set out to secure a small antelope for meat. He took only a half-gallon bottle of water, some coffee and mangoes and was accompanied by “... only nine natives, including the trackers.” Burger expected to be gone an hour or two. The party headed straight for a well-known waterhole to accomplish their task, but on arriving found a huge grass fire raging across the intended hunting spot. They pressed on for a further few miles to an area where the game was plentiful but more timid. Burger took a long shot at a kudu, which fell only to regain its feet and escape. Burger and his men made a determined effort to recover the animal but eventually lost the trail. The episode had taken some hours and there was no time to try and secure another animal. Burger decided to return to the main camp and begin the journey home. As they retraced their steps the hunting party cut the fresh trail of a buffalo herd. Given that it was a searingly hot day the buffalo had obviously just watered. There was a good chance of finding the herd in the first patch of cover. A buffalo would provide more meat than Burger and his men needed, but the excess would not be wasted. The local villagers would see to that. The hunters kept on the trail of the buffalo through difficult terrain for over three hours. The herd had pressed on further than the men had anticipated. Eventually, the buffalo were sighted and Burger crept up to within one hundred and fifty yards. The heat mirage was intense and caused sighting problems for Burger even at that range. Picking the biggest bull he squeezed off a carefully aimed shot from his 404 rifle. In the confusion caused by the herd’s flight Burger momentarily lost sight of his intended victim. As the dust cleared slightly he could see two bulls on the outside of the fleeing herd. One of the bulls started to lag behind and Burger was able to flatten it with a second shot. To Burger’s surprise, moments later the other bull also collapsed to the ground in a cloud of dust but continued to struggle. He exchanged his 404 for a lighter rifle and put the struggling survivor out of its misery. Suddenly the other bull, that had collapsed without a twitch, jumped to its feet and galloped off across the veldt. For Burger it was “. . an extraordinary thing to happen”, to have two animals fall as if dead and then escape, in the one day. He was determined that the wounded buffalo would not escape him. Burger and his trackers, whom he considered to be some of the best on the continent, examined the spot where the bull had fallen. There was a copious blood trail and all were sure that the buffalo had suffered a serious chest wound. They set off after the wounded bull, hoping to find it in the first patch of scrub. The day was terribly hot and Burger, even though having carefully rationed himself, was almost out of water. His native trackers had long finished their own water. The tracking was at first easy, but before long the wounded bull’s tracks were mixed up with those of the scattered herd and required intense effort to follow. The hours dragged on and hope of finding the bull dead faded. The men were now suffering from thirst and dehydration. As the group followed the spoor, one and another anxiously glanced ahead. The bull was clearly headed for the thick, distant forest where he would prove to be a very dangerous opponent. As the forest embraced them Burger warned his men to be extremely careful. The visibility was poor, but not as bad as they had encountered on other occasions and so Burger “. . was very surprised, therefore, when the natives suddenly called a halt.” Even Ndege, Burger’s faithful old veteran tracker of many years wanted to go no further. Burger was angry, believing it to be a ploy to cut short the hunt and get back to quench their raging thirst. Burger gave his crew a piece of his mind before snatching his 404 and announcing that he intended to go on alone and finish the wounded buffalo. It was not bravado for he firmly believed that the huge blood loss must mean that the animal was by now dead or, at least, very close to it. Ahead was a thick patch of thorn. Burger was confident that he would find the bull waiting for him there. He carefully checked his rifle and, ignoring the warnings of his men, set off. He had not gone fifty yards when he spotted the outline of the waiting bull. Luckily the animal had not yet seen the hunter and so Burger was able to take up a careful lean and shoot for the bull’s head. The distance was about seventy-five yards. Just as he squeezed off the shot the bull tossed its head and the bullet merely grazed its broad neck. Instantly the buffalo charged. The distance had narrowed to fifty when Burger fired again. He heard the smack of the bullet and knew it to be well placed but the bull did not fall. Instead, it increased its pace! There was time for one last shot and Burger knew that he must break the shoulder. At less than twenty yards he drove another big pill into the buffalo which did not flinch but pressed home the attack. “At such moments one thinks very quickly or one does not think at all”, recalled Burger. At the last moment, he dived to one side, but not quickly enough. The bull clipped him in mid-air, enhancing the hunter’s trajectory. The hunter fell heavily to earth but had the presence of mind to lie flat, making difficult for the buffalo to gore him. Burger considered it one of the most tense moments of his life lying flat out waiting for the buffalo to wheel around and impale him. It was an unnecessary precaution, however, for the buffalo continued on for another twenty yards then fell dead. So it was that Burger lay stunned and feigning death as his men gathered around. They were overjoyed to see their master come back to life suffering only the cuts and abrasions to his face and hands. But Burger’s ordeal was far from over. His terrible thirst had been accentuated by his close call with the buffalo. His throat burned and his tongue felt rough and swollen. “Gallons of water could not quench such a thirst” but the pint left in his water bottle would have to suffice. He croaked for the water boy to bring up the container. Eagerly Burger screwed off the cap to discover with horror that the bottle was empty. Burger was speechless and admitted that if murder could have in any way helped the situation he would have gladly put a 404 round through his water carrier. When he had finally calmed down sufficiently he sought an explanation. It was simple and, Burger thought not unreasonable. “We all thought you were dead, Bwana; dead men do not drink water. There was only a little left and I drank it before the others could grab it from me.” The situation was severe. All were greatly fatigued from the arduous day. After some discussion, it was arranged that two of the bearers would undertake the six-hour return walk to fetch water. As inducement, they were promised all the meat from one buffalo. The remaining men rested in what meagre shade could be found until the late afternoon. They then listlessly butchered the buffalo, carrying the meat back to the carcass of the first animal. The meat was stockpiled under one of the few small trees. Firewood was scarce and Burger had to drive his men to bring in a pile of what little could be found before the gathering darkness closed upon them. The men then threw themselves down and would do no more. The hoped-for arrival of the water carriers passed without any sign of them. Burger was not unduly surprised. The last few hours of their walk would have to have been completed in pitch darkness, over very rough terrain. With the mere glimmer of a small fire for comfort the men huddled around and tried not to dwell on their raging thirst and the bitter cold. Soon a rustle in the grass warned of what Burger had feared. Burger was suddenly glad to have brought his shotgun along. He grabbed the twelve gauge and prodded his bearers into lighting two grass flares. In the feeble light, not ten yards away, stood a big male lion. Before Burger could pull the trigger the lion disappeared with a growl. It had obviously been following the blood trail left by the portage of the buffalo meat and, but for the timely lighting of the grass torch, would probably have taken one of the men. With the arrival of the lion the hunting party “ … had miraculously recovered from their fatigue!” The lion proved to be a very nasty customer and menaced the party all through the night, leaving only at the crack of dawn, after roaring contemptuously at Burger and his men. As the sun peeked over the horizon Burger flopped to the ground exhausted both physically and mentally. Soon after, with great joy, the beleaguered party welcomed the early morning arrival of the water bearers. By the time Burger and his men got back to the main camp they had been through thirty rugged hours of African hunting! Burger had other lucky escapes from buffalo. One completely unexpected encounter occurred while he was camped on the banks of the Ipogolo River. He had constructed a rough grass shack which held all his personal goods. After a particularly hard day in the bush Burger and his safari, of some two hundred odd locals, had all retired early. At about10pm Burger was awakened by a distant, but growing rumble. He sat up in bed and listened as the sound grew closer. With the complacency of an African veteran, he thought to himself that it was just an approaching earth tremor. As he listened, however, rising out of the background rumble there came the unmistakable clatter of hooves. Burger leapt out of bed and grabbed a torch and his rifle. A quick sweep of the light confirmed his fear. It was no earth tremor, but a huge herd of buffalo stampeding straight toward the camp. The torch beam showed hundreds of fiery eyes rushing straight out of the pitch black night toward Burger. He fired one shot in desperation, but “. . . might as well have tried to stem the flow of the Nile”. The shot had no effect and Burger threw himself behind the great baobab tree beneath which his camp had been built. He hugged the huge rough trunk of the big tree as the torrent of animals swept all around him. Over the roar of the galloping hooves, he could hear the clatter of his camp being obliterated. It took some time for the herd to pass. When all was quiet the safari regrouped. Luckily no one had been hurt. While engaged in locust control in the Rift Valley, Burger found himself once again in an unsought encounter with buffalo. Apart from the demands of insect control, Burger had another good reason for wanting to avoid big game hunting for a while. His last shipment of heavy calibre ammunition had proven to be faulty with a high incidence of duds and hang fires. It was therefore without his usual enthusiasm that he received news of a nasty buff treeing his trackers. Burger set off to find and deal with the bull, accompanied by old Ndege and his other trackers. Ndege was not happy about going after the buffalo as the country was “bad”. The grass was tall and thick and while there were plenty of trees, they were, without exception, thorn trees. Ndege surveyed the thorns with disapproval. They were huge, long and sharp as needles. He remonstrated with Burger about the wisdom of chasing Buffalo in such country, especially the personal consequences of having to rapidly shimmy up a tree fairly bristling with big thorns. Burger pointed out that it was surely preferable to pull thorns out of one’s hide, rather than buffalo horns! Ndege grumbled and looked darkly at the surrounding thorn trees. Burger and his men tracked a group of five bulls. There were several lost chances at a shot and eventually Burger decided to take a two hundred metre shot with his light rifle. He had chosen the 333 because he had a few reliable rounds of soft nose ammunition for it and he had used the rifle with success many times in the past. Burger took the shot in the confidence that the rifle was more than accurate enough for his needs. He hit the bull right where he had aimed, in the shoulder. At that range, however, the soft nose 333 lacked the hitting power of Burger’s usual heavy calibre buffalo rifle. The projectile failed to inflict a mortal wound and the buffalo took refuge in thick cover. Burger and his men followed the wounded animal. The buffalo had chosen its hiding spot with great care and, despite their caution, the men failed to detect it as they moved past the spot. The charge, when it came, was therefore quite unexpected. Burger’s only good chance at a shot was spoilt when one of the fleeing men collided with him. Having missed the opportunity, he could only watch helplessly as the bull closed in on his running men. The rear-most man fell and before he had hit the ground the buffalo had flicked him high into the air. Burger aimed low and chanced a quick shot. There was the smack of a bullet strike and the buffalo broke off to disappear, limping, into the bush. The man who had been gored was bleeding copiously from a huge gaping wound to the thigh but luckily no bones had been broken. Ndege and the others painfully descended from the relative safety of the thorn trees they had taken refuge in. Each had a multitude of the large vicious thorns lodged in their flesh. Burger’s trackers had trouble sleeping that night due to the discomfort caused by the thorn trees. Burger had trouble sleeping as well, but for a different reason. He was only too well aware of his responsibilities. A previously dangerous buffalo was now even more dangerous because of the white hunter and its proximity to a well-used path posed a severe threat to all in the locality. It was several days of effort before Burger had another chance. Having only one reliable round left he was over-cautious in his next attempt with the result that he missed completely! The wounded animal joined four other buffalo and ran off into a swampy area of thick, four- metre tall grass. Burger and his native helpers climbed up onto the vantage points of large termite nests. A thousand metres away, on the far side of the swamp Burger could see four of the bulls and what might be a buffalo lying down, or maybe just a log. Conferring, the group decided that all five buffalo had emerged from the swamp and the wounded one was lying down nearby. There were several trees on the edge of the swamp where the buffalo had stopped and Burger felt that he could stalk close enough for a shot with his heavy rifle. His insurance policy in the likely event of a misfire was the safety the trees offered. Burger set off with two of his trackers and left his third assistant behind to observe from one of the ant heaps. The track left by the passage of the five bulls was easy to follow. After several hundred metres Burger was horrified to discover a single track diverge from the main one and head off at right angles. The path left by the lone animal was marked by a smear of blood. The wounded bull had not traversed the swamp with the other buffalo at all. It had doubled back and was now stalking the hunter. With visibility limited to a couple of metres and armed with a rifle more than likely to misfire Burger had never been more unnerved. His two trackers had quickly disappeared on finding the side track. Burger had just decided to get on his stomach and attempt to crawl past the waiting bull to safety when he heard the man left behind call out to him. At the same time, he caught a glimpse of buffalo horns as the bull left a slight elevation, where it had obviously been watching from, and make toward him. “Here was a truly desperate position which allowed for no delay.” Assuming that if he could not see the bull then the bull could not see him, Burger dashed off to the side for some way before slowing to a cautious tiptoe. Using a bump in the terrain to his advantage he could see the bull circling, trying to pick up the hunter’s scent, about two hundred metres away. Burger decided to chance a dash for the safety of the termite nests, some hundred metres away in the opposite direction. The run seemed endless with Burger fully expecting to feel the buffalo’s horn bury itself in his back at any moment. He finally collapsed against the termite nest, completely exhausted. His men, who had wisely escaped earlier, dragged the white man to safety on top of the termite nest. Burger had experienced all the buffalo hunting he felt he could handle for one day. He and his men left to return the next day. This time Burger insisted that Ndege, who had the previous day been recuperating in camp from his thorn wounds, should accompany the party. The buffalo had moved off across the plain and Burger was glad to have Ndege’s tracking skill. The five bulls were finally found lying in the shade of a thorn tree. Having selected a suitable vantage point adjacent to some climbable trees the bulls were roused by a yell. Four ran off, but the fifth showed every sign of charging. Burger’s heavy rifle responded to his trigger pull with a dull click, and a tense wait before discharging. The shot missed. The bull launched into a charge. Two more hangfires and Burger had to scurry to safety in a sheltering tree. The bull circled the tree, wild-eyed and frothing at the mouth. The tree shook as he tore chunks from the trunk with fierce tosses of his huge horns. “Right”, thought Burger to himself as the bull glared up at him from a distance of one and a half metres. Even with the worst hang fires, there was no chance of missing at that range, but both his remaining cartridges were complete duds! There were twenty more rounds, in a bag carried by another of the party who was in a tree thirty long metres away. Above Burger was Ndege, armed with his old muzzleloader. “Dear old Ndege, always at hand in times of trouble! Once again he would complete my humiliation doing my shooting for me!” Ndege gleefully stoked up his ancient weapon. The old tracker pointed the weapon at buffalo and pulled the trigger. There was a fearful explosion, a cloud of smoke and the whine of shrapnel passing close by Burger’s ear. Ndege was knocked from his seat and only a desperate lunge by Burger saved him from falling onto the bull below. Burger too almost fell from the tree. Ndege looked at Burger with large eyes from a face scorched and still smoking. The remains of the muzzleloader were lodged in an upper fork. “Ndege, who was obviously no student of ballistics, had been so impressed by the danger of our mission that he had on that morning rammed a treble load down the barrel of his old fusil.” The commotion had further enraged the buffalo and he rampaged about the tree for another three hours. Finally, the assistant with the ammunition was able to sprint across and give Burger the rounds he needed and Burger killed the bull with a shot between the eyes at point-blank range. The time eventually came when Burger had to call an end to his life as a hunter. On that sad day, he bid farewell to Ndege and his other faithful companions and climbed aboard the truck that would take him back to civilisation and another world. That journey would see him cross to the southern bank of the Zambezi for the first time in thirty years. He looked back at the group receding into the distance. Memories of an eventful life flooded back and Burger realized he would never be able to adequately describe the comradeship he had found in the wilds. Stories of his African hunting would enthral, but without the buzz of the African night and the romance of the campfire far from civilisation, they would lose an essential element. Burger wrote an excellent book on his adventures titled “Horned Death”. It is not just a tale of buffalo hunting but encompasses the broad sweep of African adventures. There are man- eating lions, gruesome encounters with cannibals and stories of the eccentric characters who peopled the wild parts of Africa early in the twentieth century. Burger’s story is told with style and humour and is a gem amongst the works of the great white hunters. Chapter Three - Bell

He was born on his father’s estate, near Edinburgh, in 1880. He conceded himself that his Christian names, Walter Dalrymple Maitland were a resounding burden. He was an adventuresome child and proved difficult to keep at school. His head was always full of dreams concerning hunting. Before he even reached his teens he had decided that he was going to become an elephant hunter. It was a prophetic decision for he was to become not just an elephant hunter but THE elephant hunter, Karamojo Bell. His guardians tried to counter his constant truancies from school by apprenticing him to a firm of sailing ship owners. After a short period at sea he decided that it was not the life for him and, leaving his ship on the far side of the world, he worked his way home via a series of exotic ports and various merchant ships. He arrived back home a much-travelled fourteen-year-old who begged to be financed so that he could start work as an elephant hunter. His guardians persevered and sent him off for more education in Europe. After a period there, the boy once again debunked and worked his passage back to England. Bell confronted his guardians again. They finally yielded and sometime later Bell was Africa bound. Bell, not yet seventeen, was taken to a gun maker’s shop where he purchased a beautifully made single shot, falling block 303 rifle. Shortly after he boarded a steamer with no other luggage than his rifle and a small quantity of ammunition. Nothing else was thought necessary. Arriving in Mombasa, Bell tried to attach himself to one of the many interior-bound caravans, hoping that the presence of an armed white man would be ticket enough. However, as many of the caravans were also involved in slave trading and other illicit activities, he was far from welcome, in fact almost certainly considered a spy! After much fruitless canvassing, a friend he had met on the trip to Africa put him in touch with Uganda Railway, which was suffering the attacks of man-eating lions. In fact, the man- eaters of Tsavo. Bell found himself relegated to guarding a mule train that hauled goods from the rail siding to the camp. This job also entailed shooting game for the pot and, in this, a good time was had by all. Bell soon discovered that in the hot tropics his falling block Fraser 303 demonstrated, poor extraction so that a second shot was usually impossible. Not long after he swapped it for a reliable, single shot, black powder 450 Winchester. He was soon to discover the shortcomings of the hollow copper-point ammunition that came with the rifle. These bullets expanded explosively and spoiled a lot of meat when used on antelope. Not that it mattered much as the country abounded in game. Finally, a long-awaited opportunity presented itself when a throng of excited labourers awakened Bell at sunrise with the news that a lion had been seen at a pool near the camp. He set off with his 450 accompanied by an African armed with a muzzleloader. The lion was located in a patch of grass. The animal growled menacingly as he aimed carefully at its head from twenty-five metres. Instead of blowing off the beast’s head, as he expected, the lion roared and thrashed around before entering a patch of bush. Then there was silence. His African companion volunteered that the lion must surely be dead. Bell thought that he would try to see into the cover from a tree before walking in. As he was in the process of pulling himself up on the lower branches the lion charged with a mighty roar. With a frantic jerk, he attempted to haul himself out of harm’s way with the result that the lion passed between his spreadeagled, flailing legs and set off after the African hunter. Bell dropped out of the tree and took aim at the lion but, as the African was directly in his line of sight, he had no option but to hold fire. Just as the lion seemed sure to grab the native, the man fell suddenly to the ground with the result that his pursuer overshot him. As the lion skidded around Bell shot it in the shoulder without any apparent effect. The smiling native re-joined Bell and commented that he often dodged lions in that manner. Damned liar thought Bell. The lion was finally accounted for after some more, stirring adventures. On examining the animal Bell discovered that his shots had exploded and only caused surface wounds. As soon as possible he acquired the latest army Issue Lee Metford 303 rifle. Although soft point ammunition was available Bell would not have any of it. He was determined to use the issue nickel• jacketed 215 grain projectiles. While admitting that such solids would have to be very accurately placed Bell asked, “But why should they not be so?” This was the beginning of a life-long study in nerve control and animal anatomy that served Bell so well in later years. The arrival of an explorer bound for the interior seemed to at last offer Bell his chance to hunt elephant. He resigned from the railway and awaited word to join the expedition. The call never came and Bell was obliged to support himself by shooting hippo for one of the local tribes. Soon he was almost destitute and racked by fever. He decided that in future he would avoid relying on anyone for anything and he set off for home to ask his guardians, as he was still only seventeen, to fund an elephant hunting expedition. This, however, they were still unwilling to do. News of the big Klondike gold strike attracted the attention of Bell. Once more he armed himself for his trip with a single shot from Frasers of Edinburgh, after making sure that the Farquharson actioned 360 demonstrated reliable extraction. In the Yukon, he soon abandoned the back-breaking labour of gold digging to resume hunting. The great gathering of miners had exhausted all game within a large radius and meat was selling for, the then, high price of $2.00 a pound. Bell teamed up with an amiable fellow called Bill who had a dog team. They set up a cabin high in the mountains 360 kilometres away. Bell readily performed his end of the deal by keeping the winter cabin filled with the frozen carcasses of moose, caribou and deer. He had only a limited supply of ammunition and he looked back on that period as being excellent training in careful shooting. He found that the solid projectile at nineteen hundred feet per second was adequate as long as the vital first shot was perfectly placed. He formed the opinion, which he never altered, that it was not so much the rifle as the man behind it that mattered. He also learnt another hard lesson in the school of life when Bill decamped with all the savings. On returning to Dawson he learned that the Boer War had started and being almost penniless again, he sold his rifle and made his way to Calgary to enlist. He saw some action in South Africa but found that the tedium outweighed the occasional excitement. After being captured, and subsequently escaping, he was appointed a Headquarters scout, on the presumption that he would know something of the enemy. He and his fellow scouts enjoyed the double rations and spent most of their time rustling Boer ponies. The end of the war found Bell a free man. He had reached the age of twenty-one and was determined that nothing would now prevent him realizing his ambition of becoming an elephant hunter. His wartime experience had only confirmed his opinion that the 303 would be adequate for his needs and he resisted the tempting blandishments of the gun makers. In fact, a close friend was Daniel Fraser, the Edinburgh gun maker. On occasion, Bell helped his friend test shoot the exquisitely made doubles in 500 and 577 express cartridges so that the correct point of aim could be set. Bell intensely disliked the huge recoil experienced when firing these awesome weapons off the range bench. Fraser who could apparently shoot the cannons all day long, getting better and better groups all the while, used to berate Bell about his flinch. Bell noted that the beautifully produced catalogues made great mention of the shock value of such hefty cartridges “but, curiously enough, no mention was made of what happened to the miserable human at the other end of the gun.” In Uganda Bell successfully hunted buffalo using, of course, solid 303 projectiles. It only strengthened his resolve that this was the correct method to use. Shortly after he finally found elephant to pursue. An acquaintance, a self-professed “expert” in the art of elephant shooting gave Bell detailed instructions on how to aim for the successful brain shot. After unsuccessful attempts on six different elephants, Bell decided that those elephants must certainly have their brains located in a different position to those shot by the “expert”! The great beasts merely wandered off to continue grazing after being shot through the skull with his light rifle. This and future experiences led Bell to state that 303, 275 and even 256 calibres were all one shot killers of elephant, if correctly placed, and had the advantage that an incorrectly placed projectile would cause the animal very little inconvenience. The heavier 577 and 600 calibres did much greater damage so that many elephants escaped to die painful and lingering deaths. Bell also disliked the body shot because while it might be a more certain killing shot, the elephant so hit usually rushed around trumpeting loudly before succumbing. This generally alarmed all the other elephants within two kilometres. Bell determined to master the brain shot or die trying! Thus it was that Bell conducted a detailed autopsy on the first elephant he was successful in killing. Borrowing a great cross-cut saw he had his native helpers cut the entire skull down the centre. The result was a revelation that Bell quickly put to paper in his sketchbook. He expressed the opinion that no prospective hunter of elephant should be allowed to gain a license until he had witnessed such a demonstration. With this knowledge, Bell instantly became a very efficient killer of elephants. He also learned to pick the furthest target first and, in addition, to only shoot those elephant that were standing steadily. Elephant so shot sank to a kneeling position and seemed not to alarm their companions, whereas any elephant that flopped onto its side or, worse still, fell against a neighbour would be sure to set off an alarm. Later in his career, after much study of dead elephants, Bell was able to brain shoot from most angles, including the difficult shot through the neck muscles from almost astern. Bell did very well in his first attempt at professional elephant hunting. However, a rebellion by native troops in the area of Uganda where he was operating brought a stronger official presence to the area which many of the old established traders resented. They felt it cramped their style and it must be remembered that these men used their status as traders largely as a front for quite brutal and bloody operations. They were essentially land-based pirates who thought little of gun-running, murder and slavery and who backed many a slaughter by one tribe or another for the resulting share of the spoils. As a result, these traders started to search for new areas where there would be no interference with their deadly trade. Such a place was the Karamojo. Soon snippets of information started to drift back that excited Bell’s hunting instincts. The stories were of vast herds of elephant carrying huge ivory. It was said that the only hunting was that conducted by the natives with snare and spear. Bell set about to reach this elephant hunting Eldorado. Again, however, he met the resistance of the traders who wanted no outsiders sniffing around “their” areas and possibly carry back reports of their cruel and barbaric behaviour. Every obstacle was put in Bell’s way as he tried to recruit transport and helpers. Looking back on it in later years he marvelled that these hardened traders did not just simply cut his throat. Despite these hurdles, Bell managed to mount his expedition. The Karamojo area was in turmoil due to the activities of the traders and Bell thought it necessary to acquire eight 577 Snider carbines to arm his men. The ammunition was bad and he resorted to using 450 (which was actually based on necked down 577 ammo) in the 577 calibre weapons. The erratic performance of the projectiles so fired matched the aiming inconsistencies of his askaris and, surprisingly, they managed to shoot a number of prowling hyenas with the strange combination. Bell marvelled at the fact that his askaris could not hit the side of a mountain in daylight but could pull off incredible shots at night. His own weaponry consisted of a 303 Lee Metford, a 275 Rigby Mauser, a double 450-400, a 22 and a Mauser pistol. After a week’s trek, they reached the Turkwell River, the northern boundary of European rule. On the other side, there was no rule but misrule. It was do as you please. It was dangerous country to travel in and constant vigilance was required. Nevertheless, Bell managed to win the confidence of the local tribe and soon had their help in his elephant shooting. It was typical of many encounters all over the Dark Continent. Bell would often ignore the advice of military and government officials and enter areas where he was told that he would surely be murdered, only to win the friendship and help of the people in a short space of time. He believed that the most important aspect was the initial contact, and in this, it was important to demonstrate complete calm indifference. Bell believed that to display any fear or aggression would be to precipitate disaster. So it was that he and a few of his men, and perhaps an interpreter, would walk calmly through a throng of thousands of warriors to sit down in the centre of the village and thus engage the chief in negotiations. In time he travelled extensively and learnt many dialects. He traversed areas never before seen by white man. The first Karamojo safari was a huge success and Bell returned to civilisation to sell his haul and set himself up for a stint of several years in the Karamojo with the intention of taking out ivory by the tonne. For the five years between 1902 and 1907 Bell hunted the elephants of the area returning five times to the nearest railhead, in Kenya, to sell his ivory and regroup his safari. In the following years, Bell travelled widely and investigated many far corners of Africa in his search for ivory. He continued to have great success with his small calibres and one of his favourites was a 256 Mannlicher Schoenauer carbine that weighed only 2.4 kilos. Bell said he would have continued to use it in preference to any other calibre except for the fact that the Austrian ammunition developed a few faults in the tropical climate. He was forced to revert to his trusty 7mm Mauser. Bell’s party was only small and he relied on the help of the local people for transport of his gear and, more importantly, his growing haul of ivory. Labour was easily gained in exchange for meat, either that of the elephant or else any buffalo or large antelope that could be got. To the meat-starved locals, Bell presented manna from heaven and he always had a large group of followers, usually in the hundreds but at times reaching three thousand! Bell noted that they were noisy and disturbed the game but were necessary and without them, his operation would not have budged. The year 1912 found Bell hunting in French Equatorial Africa, on the Ubangi River. The big river had many islands that were much frequented by elephant. In order to exploit the situation Bell had a ten and a half metre steam launch built in England and shipped out in pieces, none of which weighed more than seventy kilos. The vessel drew but a third of a metre and steamed powerfully and efficiently on green wood. Bell found that the vessel was able to negotiate the worst of rapids and so the whole river was opened up to him. On the river islands, Bell had huge work parties of natives clear a shooting zone across the heavily vegetated islands and perfected an elephant driving technique that yielded good results. In these operations, he used two 303 rifles, each with ten round magazines, and found the shooting fast and furious. The ammunition was his much preferred 215 grain round nose solids. In this area, he also had an exciting encounter with a man-eating leopard. Bell said he found leopards very difficult targets and thought that his performance would have been bettered had he been using rifles with short travel firing pins and a muzzle velocity of 3500 fps rather than the 2000 fps projectiles he standardised on. Up until the outbreak of World War I Bell hunted the Karamojo, Lado Enclave, Belgian and French Congo, the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Uganda, Abyssinia and the East Africa Coast. In doing so he totalled over one thousand elephants. He also estimated that he walked one hundred thousand kilometres in the process! His average tusk weight was in the order of 25 kilograms. Commenting on the weight of elephant tusks, Bell noted that the record tusk in the Victoria and Albert Museum is 2.7m long, 0.6m in circumference and weighs 106 kilos. This tusk and its closely matched twin had been collected by the slave of a chief called Shundi who told Bell that the elephant they came from was shot with a muzzleloader on the slopes of Kilimanjaro in the 1890’s. Bell noted that he had “heaps” of tusks of very similar dimensions but they all weighed a “mere” 45 to 70 kilos. During WWI Bell served as a pilot in the air corps and was soon assigned to Africa where, in his usual fashion, he contrived to have an exciting time. After the war, he was delayed for a time by a bad dose of malaria on top of his other African “bugs”. He also married. However, the call of Africa proved irresistible and Bell headed for the Ivory Coast. Again he embarked on another series of travels and explorations in which he also pursued ivory, when available. After these extensive travels, Bell returned to England and it was some time before he again returned to participate in another long journey. Following this Bell returned to retirement in Scotland and eventually passed away in 1951. Bell is still a controversial subject in hunting circles, mainly because of his patronage of sub-calibres for big game. But you cannot argue with success. Bell shot thousands of elephant and, by his own reckoning vast numbers of buffalo and a lot of lion and could recall few close calls. Most of his targets fell to a single shot. Bell would have been happy to tackle anything in Africa with an open sighted military rifle in 6.5×55, using issue military solids. He held that the dangerous reputation of much of the big five was due to poor shooting on the part of the hunter. A fault that not even the most powerful calibres could correct. Some hold that Bell was responsible for the deaths of a number of sportsmen who tried to imitate his methods. The difference between Bell and those would-be copiers was that the man was a terrific shot. He had achieved this by sheer practice and close analysis of techniques required to be a marksman. Another important factor was that a lot of his elephant hunting was of relatively uneducated elephant that had not been previously hunted to any great degree. He thought it important to be physically fit and did exercises with his rifle to ensure he could use it without strain from any field position. His advice to any newcomer was to select one rifle with one load and master it. He believed also that newcomers should accustom themselves to their weapon by carrying it everywhere and practising with countless dry firing. A famous example of Bell’s marksmanship occurred at Lake Jinja. A number of shotgunners were marvelling at a man on the shore shooting birds at great range. The birds were fast flying cormorants and were flying in huge numbers one hundred metres above the surface and over one hundred metres from shore. On going to investigate what sort of shotgun the fellow was using they found Bell pinging away with his elephant rifle, an open-sighted 318 Mauser. Bell had received a faulty shipment of six thousand rounds in which the odd cartridge failed to fire, so he thought he would use it for target practice. He averaged six out of ten birds shot at! Before he gave up he had raised his performance to eight out of ten! As with all the Great White Hunters, a story of this length can hardly do justice to their adventures. If this article has piqued your interest then you will thoroughly enjoy Bell’s three books, “The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter”, “Karamojo Safari” and “Bell of Africa”. Chapter Four - Blixen

Born in 1886, the twin son of a Swedish Baron and a Danish Countess, Bror von Blixen-Finecke was raised in a very privileged atmosphere. The love of hunting was fostered from an early age and Bror proved to be no scholar. He moved to Nairobi in 1913. His fiancée, Karen, arrived some little time later and they were married in Mombasa. The plans to establish a coffee plantation were rather short-lived as Bror opted to spend most of his energies on wild socializing and womanizing. In short order, he had established a notorious reputation in the colony for this and his bad debts. He has been described as having a Rasputin-like constitution and seemed impervious to hardship, self-abuse, disease and injury. He was an aristocratic rogue of the first order. Bror’s attempt at farming was a brief one. In his own words, “Difficulty upon difficulty arose. The plantation had to be sold. My home was broken up. I stood there in the forest empty- handed, but still had my sporting rifle.” A short thickset man of boundless energy he was widely known by his African-given name of “the waddler”, Wahoga. The largest part of his time and energy was devoted to big game hunting. It remained his overriding passion. He established a pre-eminent reputation as a big game hunter and became greatly sought after as a guide to the rich and famous. On two occasions he was chosen as a guide for the Prince of Wales’ safari. Ernest Hemmingway knew Blixen well and the hunter in his novel “The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber” was thought by many to be based on Blixen’s character. In short, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke was the very epitome of the popular image of the great white hunter. Some of Bror’s earliest hunting experiences were with buffalo. He had been walking across mile after mile of rolling veldt with not a tree in sight when he suddenly realized that he had walked into the middle of a large herd of buffalo. This experience had often been noted by other travellers of the plains. The featureless expanse appeared flat but was in fact gently undulating and many an explorer had been surprised how animals and men could appear to simply pop up out of thin air. There were several hundred animals in the group. On seeing the lone hunter they pulled together into a formidable column. Bror selected a large bull and placed a well-aimed shot from a distance of about one hundred metres. The herd thundered away in a cloud of dust. The wounded bull made slowly toward the hunter but fortunately died of its wounds before posing any serious threat. After his men arrived to skin and butcher the beast, Bror set off after the herd intent on securing another trophy. His trackers had located the herd some nine kilometres away. The buffalo were restless but nevertheless, Bror managed to close to within a couple of hundred metres. Once again he selected a big bull and delivered a well-placed bullet. The stricken bull galloped off toward a depression close by. Bror was concentrating on the animal’s progress when Abdulla, his gun bearer, tugged on his sleeve to get his attention. The herd had responded quite differently to their behaviour of some hours before. As if on command they had fallen into tight-packed order. The sight they presented was awesome. Hundreds of the huge beasts stood packed together staring at the hunters with fierce intent. Bror knew that even if he had a machine gun at his disposal he would not have a chance of stopping such a mass charge. Flight was the only possibility and there were no trees, or even bushes, to provide any shelter. Bror and Abdulla started to move slowly to their rear right in the hope of avoiding the herds left flank. Within several steps, the herd too started to move. They matched the pace and direction of the hunters. Then the buffalo turned in again and quickened their pace. The two men decided that the only slim hope lay in trying to reach the dry riverbed into which the wounded buffalo had gone. They ran flat out for the faint offer of shelter. The distance was too great and before they were even half-way to their goal they could feel the increasing rumble as the herd rapidly closed the distance between them. Further retreat was useless. Bror determined to sell his life dearly. He stopped and Abdulla stayed with him. Spinning around he was struck by the spectacle of the massed buffalo. The glint of the sun from their eyes and polished horns and the billowing dust cloud in their wake was a sight never to be forgotten. There was no time for further thought. When the mob was less than five metres away he dropped a cow that seemed to be heading straight at him. Miraculously the herd split around the form of the fallen cow that had skidded to a halt at Blixen’s very feet. A seemingly endless torrent of big bodies tore past within a metre on either side of the two men. The incident had taken only seconds but had seemed like hours. The dust slowly settled as the thundering hooves receded into the distance. Abdulla smiled serenely as if nothing of consequence had occurred. “Fate did not intend us to die this time,” he remarked impassively. Bror noted that “... no more words were wasted over that trifling incident.” The imperturbable Abdulla went on to become the butler at Government House! Bror considered the buffalo one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. He cited its great strength, speed and ability to carry grievous wounds. What made it particularly dangerous was its unique habit, when wounded and pursued, to leave deliberate tracks and then to double back and wait in ambush. This trait combined with its ability to make the utmost tactical use of the surrounding countryside made the buffalo an exceptionally dangerous animal in Blixen’s opinion. Because the buffalo was a large, common game animal it was a popular target for hunters of all creeds and backgrounds. This and the above-mentioned traits of the animal meant that it was not uncommon to stumble onto a belligerent, wounded beast seeking revenge on the first bypasser. On one occasion Blixen and a friend were walking along with no intentions of hunting. They had, in fact, left the gun bearers some distance behind and were, as a result, unarmed themselves. Without warning the peace was broken by the angry grunt and crash of a buffalo launching itself on an attack from almost point blank range. The animal burst through some intervening brush and made directly at Blixen. He spun around and tore downhill as fast as he could run with the bull gaining rapidly. When the beast was almost on him Bror dodged it neatly by running close past a sapling and, by flinging out his arm, making a drastic change in direction. The buffalo ended up skidding along on its haunches as it tried to duplicate the turn. Bror stood ready to take flight again but the buffalo, apparently considering itself fairly beaten, made off at a leisurely pace. That was its downfall for, before it had got out of range, the gun bearers ran up and Bror was able to shoot the offending animal. Examination showed that the buffalo was in bad condition, suffering from a number of gunshot wounds. Not that long afterwards Blixen was walking with his wife along the edge of a forest bordering a plain. He once again had no intention of hunting but, luckily, had a rifle under his arm. There was a bellow and a buffalo crashed out of the undergrowth heading straight for the pair. Blixen later commented that “No one who has not had a similar experience can imagine with what extraordinary speed the attack is made.” There was no time to aim. Bror jerked his rifle up and fired from the hip. The big buffalo crunched to the ground not six metres away, killed in midstride. Once again an examination showed a number of wounds pre-existing the attack. Strangely, Bror could find no evidence of his shot. The mystery was solved when the animal was butchered. The bullet had entered the open mouth and lodged in the neck. Blixen’s wanderings took him to the Belgian Congo. Here, for want of anything better to do, he took to elephant hunting accompanied by “a party of highly respectable cannibals, who had for the moment abandoned their hereditary bill of fare.” At the time cannibalism had been largely eliminated. Some decades earlier though the practice had flourished. In the dense jungles of the Congo, the inhabitants were always meat-starved. With no pastures they could not keep domestic animals for meat and game was scarce and elusive. Up until just before the end of the 19th century, human victims were sold openly in the markets! The victims were alive and bound to prevent escape. Rarely was there anyone financial enough to purchase the whole body, so the victim was sold in instalments by subscription! Interested parties would take chalk and mark out the desired cuts and there would be prolonged haggling over the price to be paid. This was particularly so with the least desirable cuts. Not until every single piece was ordered would the poor unfortunate be killed. The body would then be most carefully dissected and the bits distributed. In the thick forests, Blixen pursued elephants for their ivory. Blixen had wounded a big bull which took off at top speed down a jungle track. The trackers were in close pursuit and they were confident of bagging their quarry because, as they told Blixen, the fleeing animal was heading straight toward one of their set traps, in the form of a falling spear. It was one of several techniques used for centuries in the jungles. A large, heavily weighted spear was suspended over a game trail and the release was triggered by the tripping of a very fine thread across the path. The trap setters estimated the elephant’s direction and discussed with “the skill of a professor of mathematics” the rigging of their device. On this occasion, however, the elephant left the track several metres before the thread and crashed a detour through the jungle before rejoining the path a few metres past the danger point. The elephants that shared the jungle with mankind had learnt by bitter experience of the danger of fine threads across game trails. One advantage of this did work in the gardeners’ favour though. The stretching of a strand of cotton around a jungle garden would keep such elephants at bay! It did not work, of course, on those elephants from more remote regions that happened to be passing through the area. In fact, such garden raiders often gave the hunter a good chance to capture some ivory. The native farmers were relieved to have the threat to their livelihood removed and would get the bonus of a feast of meat as well. Blixen had his share of luck with such garden raiders. He also spent some time in pursuit of legendary Jaho, the so-called ghost elephant. Bror at first thought that the stories were pure myth until he met a fellow hunter who had actually seen the beast. He confirmed that the elephant carried huge tusks. Blixen’s imagination was completely taken with the idea of pursuing the big tusker. Blixen mounted an expedition into the heart of the Belgian Congo. The long hard march did not dampen his enthusiasm for, when he arrived in the area, it seemed that the countryside was humming with talk of the magical Jaho. He was regarded with awe, a supernatural being that could not fall to poison, pit or weapon. Bror lived the life of a wildman, every day spent on the trail of the elusive elephant as it travelled through the boundless jungle. Not so much as a glimpse did he get of his quarry. Then one night, after a full month of determined stalking, Blixen was rewarded with his first look at the elephant. He was woken just before dawn by natives who reported that a huge elephant was destroying their garden. Blixen climbed to his feet with difficulty, feeling very groggy. With a jolt, he discovered that his clothes, and even worse, his rifle, had been stolen. The thief had blown opium dust through the mosquito net, hence his deep sleep and the reason why he had not detected the presence of the robber. One of his recently hired men was missing as well. Bror quickly dispatched his remaining men after the absconder and, having nothing better to do, went to look at Jaho. The unarmed hunter must have presented a strange sight wrapped only in a blanket and with a pillow balanced on his head in lieu of his usual pith helmet. As Blixen came upon the elephant in the early morning light it was obvious that the stories had all been well founded. The beast was large of body and had a remarkable set of tusks. Blixen had never seen better. He sat for four hours while Jaho casually completed his meal, had a long drink and then began a lengthy grooming session. The elephant was quite indifferent to the presence of the Baron. At last having finished its routine the elephant disappeared into the jungle, Bror never saw the big fellow again. There was a sequel to the story, however. Some months later while in London Bror told another hunter the story of the ghost elephant. The man’s eyes gleamed as he listened intently to Blixen’s story. He stated that he intended to go to the Congo and bag Jaho. He was as good as his word and after a week in the area he dropped the much sought after tusker, succeeding where so many others had tried and failed. The tusks were well proportioned and weighed a total of 129 kilos. While he missed out on bringing the mighty Jaho to bag, Blixen got his share of ivory, and not without considerable risk. Bror and his men had tracked a small group of elephant through the dense jungle. When they finally caught up with the animals there came an extremely cautious stalk in order to get close enough to pick the biggest set of tusks. In the still jungle any errant puff of wind, or the smallest sound, could ruin the hunt and possibly prove fatal. Bror and his tracker spent a nerve-racking quarter of an hour edging silently through the underbrush that hid a number of elephant. When they finally located one of the animals in a position that offered a chance of a shot it proved to be tuskless. The wind betrayed them and the other elephants crashed off through the bush. Further determined tracking was rewarded. They found one of the elephants in a more open part of the forest. The beast did not present a perfect target but, given the better visibility and the close range, Blixen took the shot. The elephant did not fall, but instead took a couple of steps forward and stood quietly listening. Blixen knew that any sound would draw the elephant’s attention. The gun bearer whispered, “Shoot!” The elephant heard and charged. There was only time for a snap shot from the second barrel which had no effect. Blixen had taken a lean against a small tree for his shot. He attempted to jump sideways but tripped and fell awkwardly with the heavy double rifle weighing down his outstretched right hand. Before he could move the elephant was virtually on top of him. It smelt the hunter’s scent on the tree, and thinking that this was its enemy, threw the tree to the ground. It then knelt down crushing the trunk with its body weight and driving its tusks deep into the soil on either side of the tree trunk. The elephant then regained its feet and for several suspense-filled seconds regarded the motionless and prostrate Blixen before crashing off into the surrounding jungle. It took a considerable bout of whistling and shouting to draw his men back to the scene. They were amazed to find the Baron shaken but very much alive. On a hunt in Uganda Blixen was again lucky to avoid the deadly attentions of his intended prey. Having caught up with some elephant in heavy grass, only their backs were visible. Bror considered climbing onto his tracker's shoulders before noticing that there was a large ant heap close by. The top was above head height and with only a dinner plate sized top it proved a precarious but advantageous perch. Three elephants were feeding up toward the hunter. Blixen took aim at the biggest and fired. The hefty recoil bowled Blixen off the ant nest. Before the hunter could regain his feet the remaining two elephants were at the ant heap. They stood only a few metres away testing the air with their trunks. Taking the opportunity when they were looking away he managed to rise slowly to his feet. With some deft handling of his heavy rifle, he dropped both elephants on the spot. Bror went back to camp shaken by the excitement of the encounter and “not ashamed to say that he was frightened. The man who declares that he is not afraid of elephants is either an ignoramus or a liar.” Like most of the African Great White Hunters, Blixen had a fascination with lion. His first experience with the animals came shortly after his arrival in Africa while he was travelling around trying to recruit labour for his coffee plantation. He had been awakened by the distant roaring of lions and the sound of it had thrilled him. Before long the tent reverberated with the full-throated roar of a lion at very close quarters. Bror loaded his rifle and, collecting his bearer, slipped out to see if he could take his first lion. The night was fading from velvet black to the steely grey of the pre-dawn. They followed carefully in the direction from which the lion’s calls had come. Ahead lay a jumble of rocks. As they approached, the sun suddenly peeked above the horizon in front of them and superimposed on the sudden fiery backlight was the inky silhouette of a magnificent maned lion. Blixen was struck by the sheer majestic beauty presented by the King of Beasts. His bearer urged, “Shoot, master, lion!” but Bror was so overcome by the spectacle of Africa before him he could not fire. He later stated that “One could not shoot a vision like that to pieces.” Galloping lions, the chasing of lions across the veldt by hunters on horseback, appeared to Blixen to be one of the most thrilling, and potentially dangerous, of African sports. Soon after their arrival in Africa the Blixens had been invited by the well-known white hunter, Paul Schindeler, to participate in an episode of lion galloping. They waited several days, but the guide who was to meet them and take them to the rendezvous never showed up. On returning to Nairobi they were saddened to learn that Schindeler was in hospital with most of his guts ripped out by a lion. There was no hope of recovery and it took the intrepid hunter some days to die. In the excitement of the chase, he had failed to detect that one of the lions had quickly doubled back to ambush its pursuer. Only a week before Schindeler had warned Blixen, “... remember to always be careful with lions. They’ll get you one fine day.” Karen Blixen also demonstrated great courage when forced to confront lions. On one occasion when on the trek Bror had gone on ahead while the camp was being broken. The rifles had inadvertently been packed and so, when two lions jumped upon the oxen, Karen grabbed the first weapon she could find. It was a stock whip! She raced up to the lions and managed to drive the growling, snarling pair away from their intended kill! Blixen had his share of run-ins with rhinos too. On safari with Alfred Vanderbilt, the heir to the Vanderbilt millions, Bror and his client were indulging in some shotgunning of guinea fowl. They had downed several and the gun bearers had gone to retrieve the fallen birds. Two rhinos suddenly came rampaging out of the bush and headed straight for the two white men. Blixen tried shouting and waving his hat but to no effect. The rhinos kept their course. The white hunter dashed over to his gun bearer and, snatching his heavy double rifle, he fired a shot in an attempt to divert the beasts. It worked, but unfortunately, their new course coincided with the direction taken by the fleeing client. With the leading rhino only a couple of metres behind Alfred Vanderbilt, and closing quickly, Blixen knew he must shoot fast and true. Luckily the shot he fired dropped the offending beast dead in its tracks and the other diverted around its fallen companion and disappeared into the scrub. The whole episode had taken less than half a minute. The men all laughed heartily with the mirth of those relieved to have survived sudden and unexpected danger. Blixen reflected that Vanderbilt’s multi­million inheritance had been hanging in the balance for the want of several cents worth of lead! Blixen’s life came to an end in 1946. The man who had faced all the perils that Africa had to offer was killed in a car accident in Sweden! His autobiography, “African Hunter”, has been recently re-released as part of the Peter Capstick series of African Classics. It is worth reading. Chapter Five - Corbett

Edward James (Jim) Corbett was born in Naini Tal, India, in 1875 and died in Africa in 1955. He was born into a large family of fairly poor circumstances in a remote part of India within sight of the Himalayas. The area was rich in game and other wildlife and, from an early age, it was necessary for Jim to help supplement the family table by hunting and fishing. He graduated from slingshot to the slingbow, a bow-like device with a pouch on the string to take rocks. The boy copied the design from the Ghurkha troops who were stationed in the area and who used it in leisure time competitions. Soon he could outshoot the best of the Ghurkha marksmen. He was well grounded in the ethics of hunting right from his earliest days, strictly observing closed seasons not because it was the law but rather because it was the obvious and correct thing to do. Those who knew Corbett as both child and man say that he was never vain about his superb marksmanship. Rather, he considered accurate shooting, whether with a slingshot or a 500 Nitro Express, as an obligation that must be met. Even with the free ammunition he used in his slingshot, he was taught to take all his shots carefully and deliberately and make them count. Wanton Killing was not condoned. Animals were to be hunted for meat and trophies, and nesting seasons had to be considered when hunting birds which, when successful, had to be for eating or skin collection. Jim’s first gun, a dilapidated old muzzleloader, was given to him for his efforts in gathering a large number of bird skins for a collector. Armed with his first rifle, he was encouraged to venture further into the surrounding bush and jungle and start taking the larger game birds. Despite being one of the youngest cadets in the school corps, he proved himself a good shot using the vicious kicking 450 Martini. One school holiday he was rewarded for a display of marksmanship in a cadet competition. He was allowed to take home his issue 450 martini and a liberal supply of ammunition for the duration of the vacation. During this time he shot peafowl for the table, always being careful to neck shoot the birds and ensure a good solid backstop for the heavy projectiles. He also shot pigs for the local villagers. Toward the end of the holiday, Jim was sitting waiting for a flock of peafowl to come within range when a leopard, alarmed by something, ran towards the boy. Confident that the leopard had not seen him, he sat perfectly still. The leopard stopped quite close-by and, when it turned to look back, he shot it with the 450 Martini. The leopard leapt over him, splashing him with its blood in the process. The wounded leopard could not be left, so Jim followed the blood trail and, luckily, catching sight of the animal first, he managed to finish it with another carefully placed shot. Still not ten years old, and alone, he had killed his first dangerous big game. After this, he was allowed to go on prolonged forays into the jungles with a trusted old guide. For days at a time, the pair would live off the land and sleep on the ground at night, confident in the knowledge that there was little to fear from the numerous tigers, leopards and bears that populated the area. During this time Jim’s great knowledge of the jungle and its inhabitants started to accumulate and he learnt to track by sight and sound. His shooting skills, already excellent, were honed to perfection. Confident with his ever-increasing jungle skills and armed with his rifle he was able to face and conquer all his earlier fears. Despite it being considered not the done thing to frequent with “the natives” Corbett managed to become a man of three worlds. His first love always remained the jungles and its animals but he also developed a deep affection for the simple, poor people of India and became proficient in the many dialects of the hill tribes. He also made friends amongst the top echelons of the ruling British Raj. It was said that he would as readily engage a lowly beggar in conversation as he would a Lord. Life was not easy for the young Jim Corbett. After completing his schooling he had to find employment. After a few casual jobs, he gained a permanent position with the railways, accepting the contract for a terminus where all rail freight had to be transferred from one train to another because of a difference in rail gauge. He put in long hours of hard labour to establish the operation and would get out and work alongside his labourers. The job was onerous and poorly paid but Jim voluntarily shared eighty percent of any bonuses amongst the workers. There are many accounts of his generosity to the poor and needy. During what little spare time he had he still managed to get in some shooting, often in the light of the full moon. As he got on top of the huge workload at the depot he managed to get in more hunting. In fact, he was often called on to organise large shoots for visiting VIPs because of his tremendous local knowledge. Corbett’s greatest contribution to the well-being of the local people, and the thing for which he was best known, was his hunting of man-eaters. Over a period of about forty years, he responded to any call for assistance and would set off to rid isolated communities of the terrible presence of a man-eating leopard or tiger, although most of his encounters were with tigers. It is hard for us to realise the immense effect that the presence of a man-eater can have on a primitive, rural community. Firearms were few and the people, steeped in superstition, had an immense fear of such man-eaters, often believing them to be devils or evil spirits. They had to rely on outside hunters and sportsmen to rid them of such afflictions. During Corbett’s childhood it seems that man-eaters were little known but, with increased hunting pressure and a decline in natural prey, those tigers with handicaps would turn to man- eating. Such handicaps were sometimes the result of tigers being shot and wounded and not followed-up by their would-be hunters. Another common cause was the result of tigers attempting to kill big porcupines and having large numbers of spines driven deep into their face, neck and forelimbs. Such spines were as thick as a pencil and up to half a metre long with strong barbs to prevent their removal. Corbett records taking up to fifty such spines from some of the man-eaters he shot. Embedded up to fifteen centimetres deep they effectively crippled the animal when stuck in major muscles. Man-eater hunting was at first a novel new development in an old sport for the many local hunters. However, the number of devotees wishing to try their luck dropped off considerably after a number of such hunters were in fact killed and eaten by their intended prey. The usual methods of tiger hunting proved unsuccessful because, in the case of man-eaters, it was unlikely that a veteran tiger that had in all probability become a man-eater due to lessons learnt the hard, way was not going to allow itself to be shot by hunters mounted on an elephant or seated in elaborate tree platforms. When, in some cases, the death toll climbed into the hundreds and the terror continued for years and no more hunters could be induced to try for the man-eater, Corbett would volunteer to attempt the seemingly impossible, after first asking that any rewards be withdrawn. Armed with his trusted rifle, and accompanied by a few servants to tend his camp and cook his meals, he would walk into remote locations quite prepared to spend the best part of every day and night, for months, in trying to locate the killer, alone and on foot! This he hoped to do in rugged, mountainous terrain where the elusive and wary animal’s range could cover up to 3900 square kilometres. His intimate knowledge of local customs and language was a great help in gaining the trust of the people whose attitude to white hunters was often soured by previous experience with condescending, racist snobs. In later years his well-earned reputation preceded him and he was received as a veritable saint by the desperate people in man-eater afflicted areas. Walking up to thirty miles a day along tracks and footpaths, through heavy jungle, that no one else dared to use, he followed every lead that was reported, often fruitlessly. A hurried meal and a short sleep were often the prelude to a lonely all-night vigil over a human or animal kill. There was a great religious pressure on the relatives to recover at least some portion of the victim for funeral rights. Corbett always assisted where he could, although he felt that it would have been better to leave the grisly remains to the tiger rather than face that which could never be forgotten. When Corbett sat up for a night over a kill it was rarely in the comfort of well-made platforms well out of harm’s way. Mostly he would sit in the nearest suitable tree, simply perched in a fork or just sit on a larger horizontal limb, sometimes, to the horror of occasional helpers, only a few feet off the ground and easily within reach of the tiger. Corbett maintained that tigers did not kill beyond their needs and that the risk was less than it appeared. He did admit that such philosophy was, at times, hard to maintain in practice and cited an instance where, on a pitch black night (before the advent of torches), he tried to shoot the Muktesar man-eater simply by using the sound of its eating as a guide. Corbett had sat in a mass of thorny creeper that has smothered a small, stunted tree. During the night his weight had sagged the creeper until his feet were only one and a half metres above the ground. After the report of his heavy double rifle, the tiger leapt out of the gully in which the kill was situated. Corbett heard it run through a few metres of dried leaves before all sounds ceased. He sat motionless for several minutes straining to hear any slight sound, without success. When he lowered the heavy rifle to his knees the tiger snarled ominously from very close at hand. There was nothing he could do, so Corbett lit a cigarette. Just out of range of the faint glow of the match the tiger paced back and forth and growled deeply with displeasure. Corbett admitted to feeling quite alarmed and was relieved when, after smoking three cigarettes, the onset of heavy rain drove off the tiger to seek shelter. Corbett had no option but to sit through the rain which was followed by a chilling wind off the nearby snow-capped Himalayas, remaining in the tree until day dawned. When he dropped to the ground, he was initially too cramped with cold to walk. It was typical of many similar experiences. Most of the tigers that Corbett killed were shot at very close range, often only a few metres. A particularly fascinating episode was the killing of the Chowgarh man-eater. Corbett, accompanied by two servants, had tied out a buffalo as bait for the tiger and was planning on returning to camp when he became aware that the tiger was close by. As it was still only early in the afternoon and there was every likelihood that the hungry tiger would kill the buffalo before sunset, he decided that there was a good chance of getting a shot. There were two complications, however. It was too dangerous to send the servants back alone and Corbett was armed with only his light, but accurate, 275 Rigby rifle. The best approach was to cross the valley to the opposite hillside and be prepared to take the 250 metre shot if it became available. Another difficulty presented itself in that the footpath led through heavy bush, a perfect spot for the tiger to lay in wait. Knowing that under such circumstances he would be hard-pressed to defend himself, let alone his men, Corbett decided to instead proceed down an erosion gully in order to reach the valley floor. As he climbed into the gully a nightjar, a small owl-like bird that nests on bare ground, fluttered away leaving its two eggs exposed. Corbett’s egg collection lacked nightjar eggs so he took them in his cupped left hand, packed around with moss. Proceeding down the sandy floor of the gully they soon came to a four-metre drop down a rocky outcrop. The rock was worn smooth by the flow of wet season cascades and the only way to negotiate it was to slide down it like a slippery slide. Corbett passed his rifle to one of the men and, still holding the eggs, slid down. As soon as his feet touched the bottom his men leapt down to land either side. In an urgent whisper, they told Corbett that as he slid the tiger had growled from very close at hand. Obviously, the hungry tiger had rejected the buffalo and was intent on procuring its normal fare of human flesh. Extreme caution was now required. With the rifle cocked and resting in the crook of his left elbow, for he still carried the eggs in his left hand, Corbett silently led the way along the sandy, level floor of the ravine. To their right a five-metre high sheet of rock-lined that side of the gully, stopping three metres short of the next step down. Luckily, Corbett noted that the flat, sandy floor of the gully extended around and behind the vertical rock slab. As he passed the end of the rock wall he looked over his right shoulder and straight into the face of the man-eater, crouched just two metres away. The tiger sat with feet tucked beneath it ready to spring. Corbett stood frozen, looking into the animal’s intense eyes, with his rifle pointing in the opposite direction. The incongruous thing that struck Corbett was the expression on the tiger’s face. Its appearance was that of a dog’s happy look when welcoming his owner. Corbett’s lack of movement had stilled the man-eater’s spring. It was clear to the hunter that the first move was up to him and that it would have to be one that did not prompt the tiger into action. With the eggs in his left hand, Corbett could only use his right. Holding the rifle one- handed he slowly extended it away from his chest and began the slow turn to bring it to bear on the big cat. After what seemed an eternity the rifle finally lined up with the threat and seemed to discharge itself. Luckily the shot shattered the heart and carried on to break the animal’s spine. The only response from the animal to the shot was the slow descent of its head onto its paws. Suddenly weak in the knees from the close call, Corbett needed his men to help him to a nearby seat on a fallen log. Corbett ascribed his success to three things, the eggs in his hand, the light rifle and the fact that the tiger was a man-eater. An ordinary tiger would have been alarmed by finding itself cornered and would have attacked immediately, delivering at least a severe mauling. Without the eggs in his hand, Corbett would have had a normal grip on his weapon and on seeing the tiger would have instinctively tried to jerk the gun around for a shot. That sudden movement would have precipitated an instant attack from the cat. Lastly, had the rifle been his heavy double-barrelled express rifle he could never have swung it around single-handedly. Being a superstitious person, Corbett felt that his finding of the nightjar’s eggs may have been the source of his success after nineteen days of effort. He returned to the head of the gully and replaced the eggs and was pleased to see the mother bird return to brood her eggs. Despite a lot of arduous hunts, close calls with death and the first-hand witnessing of many tragedies, Corbett remained a lover of all wildlife and tigers in particular. He pressed for the conservation of wildlife and the establishment of reserves and national parks. In his latter years, he filmed some of the first footage of tigers ever shot in the wild. Like his rifle hunting, most of it was done at distances down to two metres by Corbett, alone and unarmed. Honoured in many ways for his services, probably the most fitting was the naming of a large national park and a new species of tiger after him. His books remain classics and were best sellers when first released more than sixty years ago. Probably out of print now, his major work “Man-Eaters of Kumaon” is readily available in most libraries and second-hand bookshops. It is fascinating reading and will leave you with a real hunger to find his other books. Read Jim Corbett and get to know an amazing man in a wonderful era. Chapter Six - Percival

Blayney Percival started his game ranger’s career in 1901 when he became the first permanent game ranger in the Kenyan Game Department. In fact, he was the sole ranger until 1907 when that hero of ‘Man­eaters of Tsavo’ fame, Colonel J.H. Patterson, was appointed. Percival retired in 1923 due to the effects of repeated attacks of fever. Despite this and the many other dangers and hardships, he faced during his career he passed away at the age of 86 in 1961. Like many hunters of that period, he was fascinated by lion hunting, particularly the ‘galloping’ of lions. The method involved finding a group of lions and then chasing them on horseback until they tired and could be shot with a light rifle or pistol. On paper that seems to be a straightforward and relatively easy way of murdering lions. In practice, of course, it proved to be a dangerous and exhilarating sport for those so inclined. The literature of that era has many references to the number of aficionados who were badly mauled, or killed. Lions at the time were considered nothing better than vermin and every opportunity was taken to reduce their numbers. Percival initially shared this view but later his writings indicate that his views had mellowed greatly. He gives one incident in later years where he put up eleven lions and after a hectic chase shot one dead before taking great pleasure in ‘shooting’ all the rest with an empty chamber. While he kept no score as such, it seems that Blayney Percival killed perhaps 100 lions and was involved in the taking of as many as another 150. His book has some excellent anecdotes on lion hunting. Blayney’s first experience with lion came about during a hunt for hartebeest. He had carefully stalked a herd of these animals and was preparing for a shot when they unexpectedly stampeded. His disappointment was quickly replaced by excitement as the dust settled to show the cause of the animal’s alarm. A large maneless lion stood looking after the herd who had escaped his rush. A sudden attack of buck fever overtook the hunter and, despite his best efforts to control it, all three shots he fired missed the target. He expressed his disappointment in a torrent of such scathing abuse that selected quotes were said to have become history in that district. Having let off steam Blayney and his trackers set off on the spoor. Not long after one of Blayney’s men indicated a large lion leisurely strolling along the path down which they had just come. Waiting until the lion was forty-five metres away, Blayney shot it in the shoulder. The animal grunted, but instead of falling, ran off. The hunter was determined that his prey would not elude him a second time and he set off in hot pursuit. In later years memories of that chase gave him nightmares when he remembered how he had recklessly dashed through the thick undergrowth where the visibility was but a few metres. After a torrid chase, Blayney and his accompanying men burst into a small clearing in the bush. On the other side, twelve metres away, the lion was in the act of turning around. Percival fired and rocked the animal which gave him enough time to chamber another round and fire again. The second bullet grazed the lion’s head from a distance of three metres. The dazed cat was killed with a third shot as it staggered away. Skinning of the beast revealed what should have been apparent from the first. It was not the lion that had been initially wounded! It was too late to follow the blood trail and that evening rain washed away all traces of the lion’s path. It was found dead nearby a few days later. On another occasion he had his men set fire to a reed bed to flush out the lions it contained. A lioness broke out not fourteen metres away and was rolled over by his shot. However, she regained her feet and, with a growl, took on an aggressive pose. In his haste to chamber another round Blayney jammed the action. It was too much for his askari who turned and bolted, an action that drew a charge from the wounded lioness. She brushed past within a metre of Blayney and quickly pulled the man down. Luckily the lioness expired from her wounds before she could inflict any major damage on the unfortunate askari. In another incident, Blayney was seeking meat for his entourage. In the act of stalking a herd of water-buck, he became aware of a strong animal smell. Puzzled, he stopped to sniff and look around him, suspecting that a hunting dog den may be close. At that instance, eight lions sprang out of the grass on all sides! There stood the hunter with seven lions staring intently at him while, luckily, the closest, a lioness less than three metres away was looking inquiringly at her companions trying to determine the cause of the alarm. Blayney did the only thing that could be done; he stood rock still. The lioness turned, and seeing the hunter, dashed off with a growl of surprise, the rest of the pride following. When the last was about twenty-five metres away Blayney fired, and a lion fell. At the crash of the shot, the remainder of the pride stopped, turned about, and began to growl dangerously. Once again, in his haste, Blayney jammed his bolt action. All that he could do was to drop out of sight in the long grass and try to prise out the jammed cartridge with his knife. If, a few moments earlier, he had thought that it was a rather unpleasant experience to find himself suddenly in the middle of a startled pride of lions, then the situation of lying in the grass with a useless rifle in the presence of an angry pride of lions added a whole new dimension to the experience. With great relief, he managed to flick out the stuck cartridge. Reloading, he looked up cautiously. A large lion was looking over a fallen tree at the hunter from twenty metres away. He fired and missed! Luckily the pride decided to move off. Blayney had at least collected one of the animals. Fortunately, Blayney survived these, and similar, amateurish attempts at big game hunting and became a knowledgeable and successful hunter. At one stage he was required to capture lion cubs for the Maharajah of Gwalior who wished to reintroduce lions into the wilds of India. The rearing of numerous lion cubs gave him some interesting insights into the behaviour and manners of lions. It also provided a number of amusing episodes. Some of the cubs, acquired at a very early age, grew into rather spoilt adolescent lions with the run of the house. Their boisterous habits led to some rather expensive bills for breakages. A favourite trick was to lie hidden until the table was fully set for dinner and then leap out, grab the corner of the tablecloth and run! Stray dogs provided wonderful sport in the art of ambush. While the cubs never succeeded in catching one, they induced some record-breaking bouts of canine speed. Unfortunately, the lions demonstrated little discretion in their games and after an episode, where they chased an unsuspecting, visiting bishop, arrangements for their trip to India were made with haste. As the then Commissioner of East Africa pointed out to Blayney, more lion cubs were readily available from the surrounding bush, but not so bishops. On the choice of calibre for hunting lion, Percival’s recommendation to novices was to use the heaviest rifle that they could handle under the circumstances. He admitted that most of the lions he took were shot with a Westley-Richards 265, but given his predilection for horseback hunting, that particular rifle was the heaviest that could be handled in the circumstances. Percival’s habit of always carrying his light 265 when trekking meant that he took a number of lions in chance meetings along the way. He stressed that the important aspect of this type of shooting was having the maturity and discipline to pass up those shots where the hunter could not be confident of a killing shot. When deliberately hunting lion on foot he happily discarded his 265 for 450 double. Percival had some success with leopard, but not as much as he would have liked. He commented that he most often saw leopards when armed with only his butterfly net! Leopards were and still are, much more common than lion. Percival considered that in Eastern Africa man- eating leopards probably accounted for more victims than lions. Such animals were extremely hard to destroy, usually exhibiting considerably more cunning and stealth than the, already considerable, talents of ordinary leopards. The proliferation and smaller size of leopards meant that it was fairly common for them to be raised as pets. The dangerous unpredictability of the adult meant that few full-grown animals were retained, however. The leopard’s unquenchable passion for dog flesh usually resulted in even the most urbane of pets being condemned. Percival related one very interesting story. A trader on the coast had a fully grown leopard that he had raised from a cub. The animal, under the discipline of his owner, appeared quite safe and its unconquerable passion for dogs was considered a blessing in that it thinned out the pack of mangy strays inhabiting the close-by bazaar. The leopard’s career came to an end through no fault of its own. The trader awoke one night to hear an animal moving stealthily about his bedroom. In the dim light, he could make out the shadowy form of a leopard. Thinking he had forgotten to effectively complete the nightly chaining of his pet, he leapt out of bed and took up his kiboko. The leopard, normally compliant, responded to the whack of the kiboko with an aggressive snarl. The trader laid into the snarling cat and with a torrent of whacks, he drove it out of the house and into the backyard. Laying aside his whip and reaching for the chain he was first astonished, then appalled, to find his leopard firmly and meekly still affixed to the chain. A hasty glance luckily showed that the wild leopard he had just flogged out of the house had disappeared! It took half a bottle of whisky to calm his frayed nerves. All agreed that his full-on assault on the wild leopard had saved him from a mauling, or worse. The shaken trader, having lost his nerve, soon after parted with his pet. Percival had many close encounters with rhinos on his trekking around Africa. Fairly early in the piece he learnt, the hard way, the reason why it was unwise to camp on or near old rhino paths. He had been trekking with a veterinary officer as a companion and they had pitched camp near the homestead of an acquaintance. After dining until late with their host the two men retired to their camp. Before bed, Percival set about checking a series of traps he had set in order to collect small African mammals. The vet went to bed. Suddenly a huffing, puffing cloud of dust came rampaging down the track. As it passed, Percival could see that it was a cow rhino with calf. The apparition plunged into the camp from which came a series of yells, squeals and crashes. Blayney heard something come tearing through the bush towards him. Unarmed, he tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. It turned out to be several of his panic-stricken safari helpers who nearly ran over him. He hurried back to camp to find the tent flattened but moving. His companion crawled out and in a sleepy voice asked, “Was it a whirlwind?” Percival forgot the danger just past and roared with laughter. However, there was not a lot to laugh at. Several of his men were badly bruised from being trodden on by the rhinos and a lot of gear was broken. To cap it off the rhino had stood on a large tin of jam which had burst under its weight and sprayed everything in sight with the sticky contents. The cow and calf were the first rhino to be seen in that area for some years. The beasts had stuck unerringly to their old pathway, typical of their breed. Percival usually found that rhinos were relatively inoffensive and would bluster through a safari without doing any great harm. He did note that behaviour tended to vary from district to district, however, and on some occasions, he was charged without provocation by rhinos intent on carnage. He knew of quite a few deaths attributable to such encounters. Percival noted that some people are unfortunate in attracting the attention of rhinos. He added that it was seldom the keen hunter who had this attraction but usually someone who has no use for rhino or who has "just shot their quota after much effort." He relates the story of an acquaintance who had a number of run-ins with rhino while travelling about on business. On one occasion he was riding a mule when charged unexpectedly. The mule took off through a dense thicket of thorns with the result that the unfortunate rider lost nearly all his clothes and a considerable amount of skin. Percival considered that the incident reflected “less on the disposition of the rhino than on the malignity of mules and the efficiency of African thorns.” Over many years Percival had to shoot only several of the hundreds of rhino that were seen on patrol. On one occasion a young bull charged the line of porters and fell to a single shot from Percival’s ever-present 265 Westley-Richards. On another occasion, the ranger was well ahead of his caravan looking for a rhino that had killed several natives. Hearing a yell he turned to the beast making a determined assault on his defenceless porters. In desperation, he took a two hundred metre shot with his 450 and, striking the animal in the neck, killed it instantly, much to the relief of his men. Percival states that the rhino attracts the attention of native hunters to a great degree. The Wandorobo, famed elephant hunters, always considered the rhino easy prey but never worried much about them until the demand for rhino horn made such hunting attractive. Their use of the poisoned spears and arrows guaranteed success. The Masai too, hunted rhino, chiefly to eliminate both the competition and danger posed to their grazing herds. The Masai approach was typical of those fearless warrior herdsmen. They would either stalk a sleeping beast and plunge their spear deep into the rhino or, in a mix-up, grab hold of the rampaging animal’s tail and repeatedly stab with their fighting spears as it whirled about. Such stabs usually penetrated to a depth of 600mm or more! Buffalo were much more dangerous than rhino and Percival reckoned that the apparent decrease in the number of hunters being killed by buffalo was due to the introduction of limited licences and the adoption of the more powerful modern cartridges. His considered advice for hunters keen to pursue buffalo was to use a heavy double rifle with a soft point in the right barrel and solid in the left. The animal should be stalked to within one hundred metres with the intention of raking the vital organs with the soft point and having the solid as a back-up in case of a charge, or for a rear end finishing shot. Percival’s brother had a close call when in pursuit of big bull buffalo. The wounded animal took cover in a dense bed of reeds into which the hunter and two gun bearers went to finish him. Making their way along a narrow, tangled path the buffalo charged. Percival’s brother fired and threw himself sideways into the reeds as did one of the bearers. The buffalo chased the other native for some distance, unsuccessfully. After extracting themselves from the reeds the two hardly had any time to compose themselves before the buffalo came crashing toward them. The vegetation was so thick that their first sight was the buffalo head emerging from the cover at a range of less than two metres! Luckily it fell to the shot, the hunter having to jump aside to avoid the falling body. A much- needed tot of whiskey was administered. The shaken hunting party had only just left the reed bed for home when they chanced upon an aggressive rhino that made for a very thrilling and chaotic encounter. The dust from that episode was still hanging in the air when there came the crashing of another large beast through the bush toward the hunters. It was too much for Percival’s brother, whose nerves were understandably rattled. He flew up the nearest tree just in time to see his riderless horse, which had been lost earlier in the proceedings, go cantering past. There are many intriguing stories of hairy encounters with buffalo. On one of his travels, Percival met an old, much-scarred native hunter. The man explained that a buffalo had been the cause. He had been sitting in ambush over a waterhole at night and had wounded a buffalo with his old tower musket. When following the blood trail the next day the animal had charged. A shot from the musket proved ineffectual and the buffalo drove its horn straight through the man’s thigh. The buffalo trotted off, little troubled by its burden, the hunter hanging upside down impaled on its horn. In desperation, the man drew his knife and hacked at the beast’s throat. Finally, the buffalo collapsed throwing the man clear. Having examined the man’s scars Percival had no hesitation in believing the story. He marvelled at how the femoral artery had somehow escaped being ruptured, which would have proved fatal to the native hunter. Like other rangers and professional hunters in Africa, Percival also shot his share of hippo. Few, if any, in those days considered the hippo a game animal. That is not to say that the animal was not much hunted, quite the opposite in fact. It provided a large dividend of meat and its hide was widely sought for the making of whips and sticks. An additional attraction of the hippo was the fact that its considerable fat reserves made excellent cooking fat, unlike that of many other African animals, and it was often sought for just this reason. The usual reason for game rangers to hunt hippo was mainly to rid native farmers of a pest that could do enormous damage to their shambas, or gardens. Occasionally, rogue hippos would attack boats and at times became man killers through such incidents. Percival commented that he had never actually seen a human victim of a hippo attack, but having seen a donkey bitten nearly in half he devoutly hoped that such a sight would be spared him. The first hippo that Blayney Percival shot in East Africa was one that had been raiding native rice paddies. The tracks lead back to the river. A large bull was seen on a sandbank but submerged before a shot could be fired. After a little cat and mouse game, Blayney took a shot at the hippo’s head from a range of fifty odd metres. He clearly heard the smack of the bullet striking home and the hippo sank without a ripple, a good sign as wounded hippo are want to thrash around on the surface. After a while, a telltale trace of red in the water marked the spot where the hippo lay and a canoe was able to tow the carcass to shore. As often happened, within minutes of a big animal falling to the hunter’s shot, crowds of hungry natives seemed to appear from nowhere. A joyous, carnival atmosphere prevailed as the meat-hungry throng quickly reduced the hippo to bones. Blayney watched the happy natives distributing the meat of the hippo that had until recently been threatening their livelihood with its raiding. As he enjoyed the feeling of being a benefactor he reflected that natural justice seemed to be well and truly done. Chapter Seven - Selous

It was a dream come true. The young man, not yet twenty, arrived in Africa to take up a career of hunter and explorer. His childhood had been adventuresome and filled with an interest in nature and shooting. He was determined to lead the life of the hunters whose books he had read and reread, Cumming, Baldwin and Finaughty. In 1871 the journey to the interior of Africa took two months by bullock wagon. Along the way, by hunting hard, he managed to shoot a variety of antelope. Unfortunately for Frederick Courtney Selous, his modern breech-loading double rifle was stolen the day he arrived in Kimberley. Disappointed by the scarcity of game in the area Selous made preparations for a trip into the deep interior. Selous and two friends experienced problems with their indifferent collection of firearms and were delayed when their horses ran off. From an experienced trader, Selous purchased two modestly priced large bore elephant guns of a type favoured by the Boer and native hunters. Selous proceeded to Bulawayo where he asked the King of the Matabele, Lobengula, for permission to hunt elephant. The King laughed and asked Selous if it was not Steinbucks (a very small species of antelope) that he had come to hunt, adding that the young white hunter was nought but a boy. Selous assured Lobengula that it was indeed elephant that he had come to hunt. Lobengula asked if Selous had ever even seen an elephant. Selous was forced to admit that he had in fact not laid eyes on an elephant. The King laughed and made some other disparaging remarks about the youth before him. Selous persisted and the King impatiently told him that he could go where he wished for he was only a boy and that the elephants would soon chase him out of the country. Luckily, shortly after this the famous Boer elephant hunter, Jan Viljoen arrived at Lubengula’s Kraal and Selous was able to join his party. A slight accident meant that Selous missed the opportunity of accompanying Viljoen and his party into the “fly” country, an area that had to be hunted on foot. At that time the hunting of elephant from horseback, as many of the early hunters had done with great success, was no longer possible for the elephant had withdrawn to the safety of the tsetse fly-infested bush that quickly claimed the lives of horses. So it was that only the hardiest of hunters were now bothering to undertake the dangerous task of hunting elephant on foot in thick bush. Selous was able to team up with a Hottentot hunter named Cigar who was accompanied by only two other native hunters and three servants to tend camp. Selous himself was accompanied by a native servant. It was rough living, but at the time Selous was young and eager and did not mind the hardships. Selous considered that Cigar was one of the best elephant hunters he had met and he learnt a lot from him. Elephant hunting at that time was done with big bore muzzle-loading rifles. The four bore rifle was an awesome calibre. It fired a four ounce, (1750 grain if you prefer) ball of 26.7 mm diameter. Remember that one inch is a measly 25.4 mm. In the heat of the chase, the muzzleloader was stoked-up on the run by Selous, or his gun bearer, as they sprinted through the bush after elephant. This was achieved by simply grabbing fistfuls of black powder from the leather bag each carried and thrusting it down the barrel. Overloads, in fact, double charges, were not uncommon. During one particularly hectic chase, Selous pulled the trigger only to have the cap misfire. He threw the gun to his gun bearer who, due to several nearby shots, did not realize that the weapon had not discharged. Accordingly, he rammed home another full load. The chase continued with Selous and his companions tearing through the bush after an elephant herd. Selous was running twelve metres ahead of his gunbearers when he came face to face with a belligerent old cow that had waited in ambush for the hunters. He had to dash madly through the thorns and clawing scrub with the result that he was left wearing only his leather belt and the remnants of his shirt! He doubted that there was a square inch of his body that was not scratched. Moments later he was charged by a bull and this time he was able to take a rifle from his bearer. Taking a good aim Selous pulled the trigger. The double charged rifle lifted him clear off the ground and he was twisted savagely by the huge recoil. He landed on his face in the sand a metre or two from where he had originally stood. The gun landed several metres further back. It took some while for the stunned hunter to regain his senses. When he did he found that the bucking stock had laid his cheek open and he was bleeding profusely from a gash that would leave a lifelong scar. More importantly for Selous was the discovery that his right arm hung limp and numb. Luckily for the hunter and his bearers, the elephant had been hard hit too, probably by both projectiles. It stood some distance off rocking to and fro. Selous found that his rifle’s stock had shattered despite the rock hard lashings of green elephant skin used for reinforcing. He marvelled that the barrel had not split and blown his head off. Selous took his other rifle and proceeded to within thirty-five metres of the wounded bull. After some effort he managed to get his finger on the trigger, however, he was still affected by the mishap and could not keep a steady aim on the elephant. After some massage of his arm, Selous continued the chase for some hours firing several more shots in the process. However, the heavy recoil combined with the loss of his hat in the hot sun forced him to abandon the hunt. It was ten days before he regained enough use of his arm to begin shooting again. Despite the punishment that he received from the blunt end of his armoury Selous persevered and was rewarded with seventy-seven elephants during his initial three year hunting season. In later years Selous stated that the big bores had kicked frightfully and affected his nerves to the extent that his shooting was ever after influenced by the punishment he had received. He added that he heartily wished that he had never had anything to do with them. Selous’ experiences were by no means limited to elephant. He, in fact, chased all manner of game with the intention of procuring first-rate specimens for his own collection and, at times, professionally for various museums. His interest was not only in shooting. Until virtually the day he died, he was an avid collector of butterflies and bird's eggs, the pursuit of which took him on far-ranging international expeditions. He was always on the lookout for specimens of any sort and it was common for hunting companions to marvel at how Selous would return from a hard morning afield with a rifle after big game to pick up his net and chase butterflies in the intense midday heat while they rested. His thirst for knowledge and his intense interest in nature led him to contribute numerous articles to the scientific journals of his day. These treatises were on subjects such as observations on lion behaviour (some of the first such writings), new specimens of insect and detailed accounts of journeys of exploration into unmapped regions. In 1881 Selous returned to England to write his first book, “A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa”. He did this in the hope of raising some funds for further African expeditions. It proved to be a best seller and was held to be the best book on South African hunting since Baldwin’s book of 1863. It also established Selous as one of the great hunters, naturalist and explorers of his time. One of Selous’ most famous adventures occurred in 1888. Selous had pushed deep into the interior and found himself in the land of the Mashukulumbwe. The local chief, Minenga, insisted that Selous and his party camp next to his kraal. The attitude of the natives seemed menacing and so Selous had a makeshift scherm constructed of corn stalks. That evening a feast was held and Selous was relieved to see that the warriors left their spears behind and were accompanied by their women, a sure sign of peaceful intentions. Selous, tired from a day of hunting, retired from the festivities early. Just after he had gone to bed he received an invitation from Minenga to come for drinks. Selous excused himself and went to sleep, a fortuitous move as it turned out. Some hours later Selous awoke to hear one of his native guides quietly awaking his foremost native helper. The man came with the ominous news that he had seen all the village women and children stealthily leaving the village. Selous and his men quickly kicked sand over their fires and not a moment too soon. A volley of shots came from guns aimed through the flimsy walls of the scherm. The gunfire was followed immediately by a shower of the viciously barbed spears. Selous' blood ran cold as he heard the spears raining down around him. Then followed the crashing down of the scherm as the enemy warriors streamed in. “Into the grass!” yelled Selous to his men in Dutch. In the short vicious melee that followed, he was several times close to shooting the fleeting figures that surged past him in the dark, but he held his fire for fear of hitting his own men. Once Selous and his men had fought their way to the nearby thick grass the Mashukulumbwe gave up the chase to return to the recently abandoned camp. Here they stoked up the fires and began distributing the booty. Selous sat within easy rifle shot but had no thought of extracting revenge for he considered the gravity of his situation, a solitary Englishman alone in Central Africa without blankets or provisions, nothing but the clothes he stood up in, his rifle and four cartridges and a knife! He was four hundred and eighty kilometres from the nearest reliable help and his path lay over rough terrain and through hostile native territory. That night and the next morning he tried unsuccessfully to find some of his own men. Not daring to use the few river fords, which he knew would be well guarded, Selous was forced to swim the crocodile-infested waters in his path. Shouldering his rifle and keeping the Southern Cross as his guide he trudged off on his desperate journey. He managed to shoot a wildebeest and supply himself with meat. Later he took the risk of entering a village. Here the treachery of the natives resulted in the loss of his rifle and he was fortunate to escape with his life and a little meat. Selous took the risk of visiting one of the minor chiefs he had met on the way in. This chief gave Selous some provisions and some advice before quickly escorting him from the village with the chilling news that Minenga’s men were scouring the countryside for him with murderous intent. Selous made his way into the territory of the Barotsi where he found shelter with chief Marancinyan. Here Selous stayed for three days with his life hanging in the balance as the chief conducted delicate negotiations with the Mashukulumbwe who had been hot on Selous' trail. Selous was provided with guides who eventually led him to the remnants of his party, who were overjoyed to see him. All had had narrow escapes while twelve of the party had been killed and six wounded. Later on, his knowledge and expertise proved valuable to the authorities in the scramble for land. Selous, always on the lookout for trophies, took the best Kudu bull he ever saw while scouting for the occupation of Mashonaland in 1890. Selous was regarded by the public as a great lion hunter. In fact, he considered himself no such thing and pointed out that he had in fact killed only thirty-one lions and assisted in the destruction of another eleven. Like that acknowledged great hunter of lions, Sir Alfred Pease, Selous could have taken many more lions had he been so inclined. There were others who had taken many more lions. Selous considered the title probably belonged to Petrus Jacobs who took well over one hundred lions, mostly with the assistance of dogs, a technique that some frowned on as unsporting. The question of what was the most dangerous African game was often discussed. Some experts held that the lion was the more dangerous while others declared buffalo or elephant as the more dangerous. Selous agreed that buffalo were responsible for most fatalities but pointed out that there were many more buffalo shot than lions. It must be said that nevertheless, most experienced hunters would vote for the buffalo. Selous who shot hundreds of buffalo, and had some extremely close shaves, still regarded the lion as the most dangerous to deal with. The advice offered to would be lion hunters on how to handle a lion charge was to take the first shot at fifty metres. This would allow the second shot, assuming the rifle was a proficiently handled bolt action, to be taken at about five metres. Even the experts were at times mauled by their intended prey. Jacobs was badly mauled when hunting lions at the age of seventy-three. Unlike the well-quoted experience of Dr Livingstone, Jacobs thought that the bites and clawing he received were extremely painful. Selous, tongue in cheek, suggested that the absence of pain in Livingstone’s case was due to an especial mercy that Providence did not extend beyond the ministers of the Gospel. Selous shot his best lion in 1891, a magnificently maned specimen that measured over three and one third metres when pegged out. This particular lion had been taking a heavy toll of the stock on a friend’s property and all attempts to catch it had failed. Selous made a rough lean-to shelter against a tree trunk close to the carcass of an ox killed by the lion the night before. He made one opening facing in the direction he expected the lion to come from and another facing the kill. The lion was not expected to come until after midnight. He was busy making himself comfortable in the early evening when he discovered with a shock that the lion had arrived. Even the brief glimpse in the moonlight was enough for Selous to realize that it was a magnificent specimen of a black-maned lion that he was dealing with. Selous could hear his native helpers laughing and joking not fifty yards away in camp. He was amazed by the boldness of the beast. The lion was so close that Selous could have poked him with an outstretched rifle barrel. However, the fact was that the barrel was pointing out the hole in the wrong direction. Selous cautiously and soundlessly began to withdraw the rifle to the other shooting hole. Just as Selous was taking aim the lion inexplicably took fright and, with a growl, disappeared from view. Selous jerked the rifle back into the hide and thrust it out the other hole just in time to get a perfect aim on the shoulder of the rapidly departing lion, only five metres away. The squeeze of the trigger was greeted with the dull click of a misfire, the sound of which spurred the lion into a gallop and it disappeared into the night. The next morning Selous took to his horse and accompanied by one of his bearers set off on the spoor of the lion. They caught up with the lion in the scrubby bed of a creek. The lion growled as Selous dismounted, rifle in hand. It charged from fifty metres and Selous was able to hit it with a 360 grain soft point. The lion disappeared into the creek with a mighty splash and then proceeded to plough through the water towards Selous who finished him at close range with another shot. Selous recounted many of his adventures in his book “Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa”. He left Africa in 1893 planning never to return. In 1894 he married his fiancé whom he had met on a previous trip, some years earlier. After a world tour, they settled in Worplesdon where Selous erected a private museum to house his extensive collection of natural history specimens. Within a year or two, however, Selous found the cost of living too high and the call of the wild too strong and so he and family moved back to Africa where he was to assist in the management of a land and gold mining company. The family settled on the company farm at Essexvale in 1895. In 1896 the Matabele rose in revolt again and a number of European workers on Essexvale were killed. Luckily Selous was able to get his family to safety. The settlers were in dire straits for a while and had the Matabele used their overwhelming numbers with better strategy they would surely have been victorious. During a squirmish with the Matabele Selous lost his horse and was forced to run for it from a large body of enemy warriors. Selous reflected that had it been twenty years earlier he could have easily outrun them. Instead, he found that they were slowly gaining on him. Luckily a mounted friend came to his assistance and by hanging onto the stirrup iron Selous was able to evade the enemy after an action-packed and eventful chase. He led, what was to many, a romantic adventuresome life. In reality, it was a life of privation, hardship and danger with little reward. His letters to his family show clearly that his hunting was a marginal occupation. Time and time again he was despondent about his lack of savings and the inevitable setbacks he received. Whenever he returned to sell his ivory he would see his handsome payout rapidly disappear in the payment of his crew and the purchase of ammunition, new firearms, stock and wagons. A variety of African fevers and complaints racked him and but for the dedicated nursing of Boer women, he would have died on several occasions. He was once lost in the bush for five days with no ammunition and only the clothes he stood in and, to cap it off, his horse ran off! He was lucky to survive the hot days and bitterly cold nights and find his camp at last. He had close friends who were lost and died in the featureless bush and one particular episode haunted him for some time. Selous suffered enough wounds and illness to have killed ten men. He had a variety of bad falls and other mishaps with horses too. During one wild chase, he was swept from his saddle by a tree branch that made a nasty wound in the corner of his eye. After capturing his game he returned to camp for some rough and ready treatment. Eight months later while visiting Rowland Ward in England Selous had a sudden violent sneezing fit with the result that he coughed out a lump of wood 27 mm long and 8 mm thick! It was the end of a dead branch that must have been driven through his eye socket and into his sinus passages. In one of several vicious skirmishes with the Matabele Selous was shot by one of the enemy warriors. The heavy lead slug hit him just below the right nipple and, luckily, striking a rib it diverted around his rib cage, rather than through it, to exit out his back. He recorded in a letter to home that he was slightly wounded and a little stiff and sore! On one occasion he was severely bruised and nearly suffocated when an elephant attempted to crush him. Luckily the hunter slipped into the space between the animal's knees as it knelt down to squash him. The number and nature of his close shaves with death goes on and on. Frederick Courtney Selous' luck finally ran out on the fourth of January 1917. While engaged in an action against German forces in East Africa he was shot through the head. The sixty-five-year-old Captain of the 25th Royal Fusiliers had been an inspiration to all who knew him. Hardy and fit he put to shame men young enough to be his grandchildren and exhibited strength and bravery at all times. Shortly before his death, while on leave in England, a friend had enquired as to why Selous had trimmed his white beard to the point of non•existence. Selous calmly pointed out that his brilliant white beard had proved too tempting a target to German snipers in the African bush war. Selous was buried in a simple grave in the remote African bush that he so loved. Theodore Roosevelt was a close friend of Selous. They had corresponded for many years and Selous had been a guest at the White House and had arranged and guided Roosevelt’s African safari. Roosevelt said of Selous, “He closed his life exactly as such a life should be closed, by dying in battle for his country while rendering her valiant and effective service … I greatly valued his friendship, I mourn his loss, and yet I feel that in death as in life he was to be envied.” Chapter Eight - Foa

Most of the classic big game hunting books have been written by British hunters. There are a few exceptions, and one of the best of these is Edouard Foa’s “After Big Game in Central Africa”. The book documents some of the notable successes, trials and tribulations, faced by Foa during an epic three-year hunt in the 1890s. Foa, whose express purpose was to collect specimens for the Paris Museum, travelled widely in the Dark Continent and sent back a huge collection to his employer. The book is much more than a dry catalogue of specimens obtained, for Foa’s love of hunting is clearly evident throughout. Before starting on his adventure Foa assembled his armoury. He had already achieved wide experience in African hunting and the French gunsmith Galand had provided a number of custom-made firearms. Foa chose as his principal rifles a pair of .577 black powder double- barrelled express rifles. The lighter of the pair weighed 4.8 kilos. As a backup intended for elephant hunting there was a double-barrelled rifle of 8 bore. With some misgivings, Foa also took along a newly released small-bore in the form of a double- barrelled .303 rifle. It was robustly built, being the third prototype in a series where the first two blew up in the user’s face. In fact, the .303 double weighed almost as much as the .577 rifles. Additionally, Foa had a six-shot pump action Winchester 12 gauge shotgun, a 32 gauge double-barrelled shotgun for the collection of small birds, two heavy calibre revolvers and a derringer. There was a suitably large supply of ammunition which included a variety of projectile loadings for the rifles. For the 8 bore rifle, there was a choice of 1094 grain ball or 1777 grain conical projectiles. The 1777 grainers, incidentally, were pushed out with 219 grain charge of black powder. The .577s had three projectiles to choose from. There was a 492 grain jacketed projectile in either solid or hollow point as well as a pure lead 574 grain solid. The charge for these was 164 grains of black powder. With the .303 Foa took a variety of solid, soft point and hollow point projectiles varying in weight between 191 and 219 grains. All the ammunition was made by Eley and Kynoch. Foa chose these because of their outstanding reputation for quality. This was proven to be justified as Foa noted there was not one misfire experienced in his 5000 rounds fired. Early on his journey Foa was keen to try his small-bore. Some Lichtenstein Wildebeest presented a chance to blood the .303 rifle. It would be a good test, for the animal was called Harte-beest, literally “hard beast”. The chosen target buckled to the impact of a soft point. Foa, impressed by the .303’s ability, used it to take a variety of game in the coming days. The highlight of this was the downing of an eland with a two hundred metre shot. Apart from its accuracy and striking power the thing that most impressed Foa was the absence of the usual cloud of smoke associated with the black powder weapons. The black powder big bores generated a veritable cloud of thick smoke that was a real danger to the hunter using them. Not only did it announce the exact location of the hunter but, more importantly, it masked the actions of the intended victim. Often the first warning of a wounded animal’s charge was when it appeared out of the smoke at a range of two metres. Camped by a river Foa was frustrated in his intentions to shoot some representative hippos. Instead, a number of large crocodiles were shot. Foa and his companions retired to lunch, leaving the native helpers to retrieve and butcher the crocs. Soon his men ran up to tell that they had found a man in the belly of one of the big lizards. Sure enough, there was an arm with a hand attached, a foot and ankle and a section of ribs. The bits and pieces were little damaged, appearing to have been cut cleanly as with a band saw. Foa ordered his men to bury the remains but the men would have none of it. Rather than labour the point Foa had the whole lot, croc and all, pushed back into the river. Soon there was another test for the .303. Some of Foa’s trackers returned with representatives of a nearby village. A man-eating lion had, in the last few days, claimed a victim from their community. The men assured the hunter that their village was “quite near” but, in fact, it turned out to be a considerable distance. The last few hours walk to the village was completed in the pitch-black of an African night. With no light, there was nothing that could be done, so, on finally arriving at the collection of huts, Foa tried to get some sleep. In the early hours of the morning, Edouard Foa was awakened by a commotion from a set of huts some little distance away. Foa and his men ran out to investigate and were confronted by a weeping woman who threw herself at the white hunter’s feet. She implored him to save her son who had just been carried off by the man-eater. In the pitch pre-dawn darkness the handfuls of burning straw that served as torches failed to throw enough light to spoor the lion. Impatiently Foa had to sit and await the rising of the sun. The weeping and wailing of the village women mourned the loss of the boy and, luckily, there was soon enough light to leave the bereaved village and set off after the killer. Foa restricted the number of people who wished to accompany him to ten. The blood trail became heavier every time the lion stopped to feed. At a patch of heavy grass, into which the trail disappeared, the lion announced its presence with a growl. The tall growth restricted vision, but one of the hunter’s men was able to climb a tree and clearly see the lion, and its victim. With the assistance of his experienced tracker, Foa was able to arrange an impromptu beat. A cat and mouse game between the lion and the hunter went on for some time. At last, with the persuasion of the beaters, it appeared before Foa at a range of eight metres. The lion growled and flattened its ears. Its tail straightened out stiff in the air, a sure sign of an imminent charge. At the last second, it glanced back toward the beaters, giving Foa a split second chance. He had counted on the precision of the .303 to handle the lion and was not disappointed. Given the opportunity, he hit the lion exactly where he wished, right behind the ear with a 191 grain hollow point. It fell dead without a twitch. The lion was old and thin and, obviously past hunting its normal prey, it had turned to the easier choice of man-eating. Foa took the skin and then let the villages vent their anger on the carcass. Long after his men and he had left the village they could hear the distant throb of tribal drums and the yells of the people. During the course of his hunting, Foa became an admirer of the .303 and used it extensively to take a wide variety of game. He estimated that he had fired about a thousand rounds through it to good effect. Later in his travels, Foa was again asked to deal with a troublesome marauding lion. Tempted by his need for additional specimens of lion and a chief’s offer of all the necessary men for a “battue”, Foa accepted. It was not without misgivings though, for he had on previous occasions seen such events go wrong, with fatal results. Those misgivings were increased when he discovered that nearly all the eighty beaters were armed with muskets. Foa’s attempts to convince the men to leave the guns behind was, not unnaturally, unsuccessful. Foa did his best to instruct the gathering on what he required of them and all went well, up to a point. With his own men swelling the ranks, and himself at the very bottom of the U shaped column, the beat commenced. Odd glimpses of the fleeing lion were communicated back to Foa, who had seen nothing himself. The lion retreated into a patch of particularly heavy cover and its reluctance to leave had the effect of causing the beat to circle and contract. At this stage the lion, obviously suffering from rising consternation, decided to seek quieter surrounds. Its attempt to breach the cordon was met with a volley of shots. Highly alarmed it dashed to and fro, each time with the same result. The intensity of firing escalated. “Soon the uproar becomes indescribable” relates Foa. The dense cloud of musket smoke fogged the area. Nobody could see past the end of their barrel but the shooting frenzy continued. The locals were reloading and firing as fast as they could pull the trigger. The constant barrage of shots was accompanied by the enraged roaring of the lion, near demented with fear and anger. The excited native hunters added to the symphony with excited full-bodied war cries. ‘The melee is complete; one might think oneself on a battleground” observed Foa. Disorder was rampant and Foa had no chance of trying to rescue the situation. Amidst the chaos, Foa’s sense of humour got the better of him and he was seized with a fit of laughter. However, he was soon brought back to reality as projectiles buzzed uncomfortably close by from all directions. Bark flew from the tree behind which he attempted to shelter as the lumps of iron and lead and other objects, pressed into service as projectiles, hammered against it. Added to the danger of being riddled was the prospect that the guest of honour, still rampaging back and forward within metres, would discover Foa and vent some of its immense ill-feeling upon him. After a seemingly endless ten minutes the barrage petered out, the yelling subsided, and the smoke drilled grudgingly away. Foa commented, “I understand that the hunt is abandoned”. Foa’s men came and reported the results to their master. Luckily none of his own party were seriously wounded. Amongst the villagers, however, eleven had received gunshot wounds. Foa thought this “an extremely moderate number” given that all the action had taken place within a fifty-metre circle. And, of the lion? The trackers all agreed that it had escaped without a scratch! At least it had the decency not to maul anyone in the process. Another interesting experience that Foa and his men had with lion occurred one night. As was always his practice, Foa had his men make a secure enclosure of stout thorn bushes to protect their night camp. While cutting the necessary thorns, the trackers had noticed a hive of bees in a hollow limb close to camp. It was dark by the time all the necessary chores were done but the prize of honey was not to be forsaken. Three of the men made rough firebrands and set off to harvest the wild honey. The African twilight resonated to the sound of an axe beating an appropriate slow rhythm as the men worked at opening the branch containing the bees. As the men in camp relaxed and talked quietly, their trained ears caught some slight sounds from the nearby bush. There could be no doubt that a small pride of lions had arrived. No sooner had the lions been detected than there came a low whistle from the direction of the honey tree. The hunter’s had established their own reliable system of communication for hunting. It consisted of the mimicked calls of many different birds. When hunting the group could communicate effectively over a considerable distance without alarming their quarry. Foa glanced at the arms rack and realised that the honey gatherers had taken only one rifle with them and that it would doubtlessly be propped at the base of the tree in which they were working. He called to his men. They replied that the lions surrounded them and that they were in growing peril of slipping from the small tree. The only option was to go out and save his faithful helpers. Foa and his head tracker loaded their rifles and, with the faltering assistance of some handfuls of smouldering straw they made their way to the tree. The lions were now growling and roaring as they circled the rescue party. The sounds of the cats’ footsteps were loud in the dry leaves that carpeted the earth, however, nothing of them could be seen for, “The night was black as pitch”. The rescuers reached the tree without incident but doubted whether they would all make the return journey alive. The lions were now scampering around the party and getting more and more excited, coming within metres of the men. Yet, nothing could be seen. It was Foa’s experienced tracker, Tambarika, whose cunning saved the day. He quickly told his plan to Foa and they called to the men still in camp and organised the detail. It was simple and effective. The distant men softly imitated the calls of a ravaging hunting dog pack. With the skill and knowledge of experienced bushmen, they gave the startling realistic rendition that the dreaded pack was rapidly drawing near, driven by fierce hunger and determination. With a few suppressed, resentful growls the lions disappeared rapidly into the night. Foa knew that their respect for the pack was well founded. The relentless dogs were known for their ferocious mass attacks. Once they selected an animal they would chase it to the ends of the earth. Nor would they be deterred by fierce resistance. Heedless of risk, the pack would pour onto the victim and would fight to the death. Foa knew that, at times, the pack would attack lions and, though there would be many casualties for the dogs, the survivors would dine on cat! It was a successful end to a dangerous situation. Foa noted, “My feelings, when one of the lions roared and I could not see three yards before me, were far from agreeable, and I do not recommend it for people with delicate nerves.” Foa was keen to take rhino too. One night he relaxed and read the day’s delivery of mail, the first in four months. Suddenly one of his trackers, who had been bathing outside the camp, came running in to tell Foa that he had heard the unmistakable sound of a rhino at the waterhole. Putting on his slippers the white hunter grabbed his .577 express, buckled on his ammunition belt and set off into the night. Cautiously approaching the pool he could see a grey smudge at the water’s edge. Carefully he stalked closer, narrowing the range to about twenty metres. Still, he hesitated from firing, not being able to see his target clearly enough. Foa dragged himself forward on his belly to get within ten metres. The rhino responded by snorting and became agitated. It turned to face the hunter. Foa was still not happy at the prospect of taking a shot, but there was now no option, for a charge looked imminent. Taking as best aim as possible, Foa fired the right barrel at where he guessed the animal’s chest to be. Instantly he threw himself sideways into the shelter of the grass to escape the billowing cloud of smoke that marked the spot the shot was fired from. It was a wise move, for the rhino charged into the smoke and rampaged about on the very spot that Foa had occupied only moments earlier. After a few moments of rooting and snorting it made off and, on firing the left barrel, Foa heard the solid thud of the bullet striking home. The rhino galloped off out of earshot. They would take up the chase in the morning. At first light, the trackers scoured the area and happily announced a distinct blood trail. The trail did not lead far and the beast was soon found lying dead. The first shot had told and Foa was impressed at the power of the .577 express. The projectile had made a deep furrow that started at the jaw before entering the neck near the ear. It had progressed without deviation to travel the full length of the animal’s hefty neck before plunging into the chest where it tore through the heart and lungs before coming to rest against the diaphragm. He added the battered lump of lead to his collection of such projectiles recovered from big game. Elephant too was high on Foa’s list of desired trophies. He had tried hard and long to obtain good specimens but without much success. There had been many occasions when long and careful stalks had proven unsuccessful. The times when Foa bagged his animal were not without incident either. Hunting near Lake Nyassa in 1897 the party came across a small herd of elephant. There was one good male in the group and Foa was determined to try for him. The big male was closely accompanied by an old, tuskless female and Foa speculated that it may have been the bull’s mother. The wind was right and the elephants had not detected the presence of the hunters. Foa and his gun bearer, Msiambiri, stealthily manoeuvred into a position of ambush. The herd drifted closer and closer, but to Foa’s consternation, the bulk of the old tuskless female constantly obscured any chance of a shot at the bull. With the animals drawing ever closer, and the risk of detection growing, Foa decided to shoot the female and clear the way for a shot at the bull. The old female collapsed to a clean brain shot from the .577and Foa quickly took the 8 bore from his trusty bearer. He took the only shot offering, and the booming big bore crashed a big slug into the bull elephant’s heart region. In the confusion that followed Foa was able to hit another elephant that passed close by him. The herd crashed off into an extensive and dense thicket. After a breather to regain their composure the party set off on the trail of the elephants. The path bulldozed by the fleeing animals was quite clear and, luckily for the hunters, the dense growth soon gave way once again to more open forest. Almost immediately they found the large male lying dead in a little clearing. Fifty metres ahead the clear track of the elephants’ flight led through a sunlit opening in the forest. The men decided to look in that spot for blood sign from the other wounded animal. They had no sooner reached that point than the air was rent by the scream of rage. A huge black mass had materialised, as if from nowhere, and towered over the hunters. It was so close that there was no time for further thought. The men scattered like frightened rabbits. ‘We throw down our heavy rifles so as to run the quicker”, said Foa. The elephant was so close that the fleeing hunters would not have had even the split second required to turn and fire. Foa ran for his life. He said later that “It was impossible to describe the terror, mingled with rage” which filled him at the time. The white hunter and his bearer, Misambiri, ran side by side down the path torn through the scrub by the elephants only minutes before. The shrill screams had ceased but the heavy footfalls of the pursuing elephant were at their very heels and “a powerful, spasmodic breathing is heard.” A gust of hot air played across Foa’s back and neck. Misambiri gasped “Tchitamba! Tchitamba!”. It was the elephant’s trunk grasping only centimetres behind them. The added terror spurred the two to greater efforts. They crashed through the clawing bush, unmindful of the big thorns that tore into them. Branches whipped across their faces. Foa felt as though his chest would soon burst and the episode was starting to take on a dream-like quality. Just as he reached the point of collapse, his companion screamed and was jerked up into the air. The white hunter ran on for a while, alone. There was no more pursuit. In his own words, “I continue running for a few seconds unconsciously, but the terrible awakening stares me in the face … Yes, I am saved, but the other is dead! • all through my fault … Remorse and regret complete my distraction”. Foa felt that he must return to render whatever aid he could to his companion. Trembling with a combination of fear, exertion and emotion he cautiously retraced his steps. Ahead he could see the back end of the elephant. Its head and trunk held low it shuffled slowly about, grunting softly to itself. Foa drew nearer, dreading what he may find. The elephant stopped and half turned in his direction. For a few heart-stopping moments, Foa thought that the beast had seen him and was about to charge again. But no, luckily the elephant turned away and made off. Foa, well aware of what an elephant is capable of, looked around, scanning the tree trunks for gore. He soon found the African sprawled on the sandy earth. Msiambiri was as pallid as a negro could get. He was splattered with blood but nevertheless propped himself up on one elbow. Foa rushed over, urging the man to rest. Msiambiri replied, “Nothing is broken, but I have pains everywhere”. The elephant, it seems, had snatched up Msiambiri and raised him high in the air. The hunter thought he was doomed for surely the enraged elephant was going to batter him against the nearest tree. However, the elephant had more exacting vengeance in mind. It clearly intended to trample him to a pulp, for it threw the man down savagely. In fact, it threw him so hard that he shot straight through between the giant feet and ended up some yards behind the elephant. Msiambiri had the sense to lie perfectly still. Luckily, the slight breeze was in his favour and the frustrated elephant ran back and forward, only metres away, trying to relocate its victim. Foa’s arrival had disturbed the elephant and probably saved the man’s life. As the tracker dusted himself off, Foa whistled up his other companions. On arrival, they gasped at the bloodied nature of both Msiambiri and Foa. The clothes of both had been torn to shreds in their head•long flight and the many abrasions they had suffered bled freely. Once assured that both were not badly injured they presented Foa with his .577 express and resumed the hunt. Cautiously retracing their steps, the elephant was soon spotted ahead. Foa edged up close and in doing so made a noise that caught the attention of the big beast. With outstretched ears, it turned toward the hunter and gave “a by no means engaging grunt”. Foa rapidly fired both barrels and leapt away from the denouncing cloud of smoke. But there was no need. To the joyous cries of his men, it collapsed with a great crash into the undergrowth. Apart from supplying a renowned collection of big game to the Paris Museum, Foa also accumulated a highly meaningful collection of his own trophies. Each was a moment of some particularly exciting episode during his epic safari. He felt sure that in his old age, back in Europe, they would evoke memories of his adventures, “face to face with the big game of Africa, in the company of my brave black companions”. Foa’s excellent book, long gone from library bookshelves, was released in a modern, limited edition reprint by Safari Press about 20 years ago. Full of interesting anecdotes and richly illustrated with marvellous photographs, it is an enthralling account of big game hunting and African safari. The reprint was limited to 1,000 individually numbered copies, nicely bound and reproduced. Chapter Nine - Anderson

The Mamandur man-eater was active again and Kenneth Anderson was keen to account for the tigress before she took any more lives. He had spent five days stalking the jungle paths and tying out baits when a party of men rushed into the forest bungalow to tell him that a railway man was missing. The man had set out to light the two kerosene night lights that lay some way down the track from Mamandur station. Normally these lights would have been lit at about six pm, just before dusk, however with the danger of the man-eater to contend with it had become the practice to set the lights while there was still plenty of daylight left, well before five. The time was just on six and, with the man by now well overdue, the worst was feared. Anderson quickly gathered his rifle, torch and a few other essentials then set out to investigate, alone. He took a shortcut through the jungle to join the railway line at a point approximately half way between the two lights. A glance to his left revealed that the inner light was twinkling in the distance. Anderson concluded that the man had lit the inner light first before proceeding to the more distant light. As he walked along Anderson carefully scoured the ground for any sign of the attack that must have occurred. When almost at the outer light he looked up and was surprised to see that the light was burning. The railway man must have been attacked on his way back! The time was now almost 7 pm and the light was fading. Luckily an early risen moon gave the hunter enough light to see by. Almost at the spot where Anderson had joined the track was a culvert over a deep gully. As he walked back across the culvert a glimpse of something in the gully below caught Anderson’s eye. It was part of the garment worn by the unfortunate railwayman. Wedged under a boulder not seven metres from the embankment was the body. Even in the uncertain light, Anderson could tell that the body had been partly devoured. The victim’s neck had been bitten through and the head lay a metre from the corpse. The light was rapidly disappearing and it would have been extremely dangerous, and unnecessary, to approach the kill, for the tigress was quite likely laid up close by and watching Anderson. The only place that offered any slight security was the middle of the small culvert. Anderson had no choice but to lay between the tracks in the middle of the short seven-metre span. The winking red light of the inner signal seemed to taunt the hunter with the fact that help was close but yet so far away. The night was brilliantly moonlit and as the hours ticked by Kenneth Anderson lay uncomfortably across the rails and sleepers. The call of Sambar and Chital deer had initially roused his hope that the tigress was on the move. These hopes were soon dashed when he realised that the calls came from different directions, indicating that various carnivores were on the move. Perhaps it was the activity of leopards or a wild dog pack that had alarmed the grazing animals. The hunter glanced down at the body and what he saw made the hair on the back of his neck rise. The severed head that had until now been staring at the sky had somehow rolled over to turn its eerie gaze on Anderson. No animal had come to disturb it so how had it moved? Those few who are brave enough to take up the calling of hunting man-eaters, which often entails suspense-filled, lonely, all-night vigils over half-eaten corpses, cannot afford to harbour superstitions or irrational fears. Anderson, who, over a lifetime of hunting man-eaters had seen some macabre and grisly sights, needed all his self-control when the head started to rock to and fro in the sand. He fought the primaeval urge to run screaming down the track. A dead head, whether human or animal, cannot move of its own accord he assured himself. He stared, fascinated by the horrid spectacle before him until the solution suddenly presented itself. Two large rhinoceros beetles had come across the object and, for reasons unknown, were trying to move it to one side. Anderson quickly returned to his vigil. He had been so engrossed by goings on in the creek bed that the tigress could easily have surprised him. In the early hours of the morning, he had to stiffly rise and vacate his waiting spot when the mail train came through. The train braked to a halt and the driver and guard jumped out to apprehend the hunter. They thought that he was a would-be suicide! That situation was quickly resolved as Anderson explained his true purpose. The train crew listened askance. “You have been lying here in the open by yourself since evening?” they asked incredulously. “You are quite mad,” stated the driver, and his companions nodded in complete agreement. The locomotive crew quickly reboarded the safety of the train and chuffed off into the night. When the sun had been up some little while the weary hunter made his way back to the station and told the station master that the grieving relatives could collect the remains for burial. At 4 pm he awoke after a good day-long sleep, had a substantial meal and set out to check all the baits. None had been touched. Sunset came soon enough and, shortly after the bright moon illuminated the countryside. A plan hatched itself in the hunter’s mind. Perhaps if he borrowed some flowing white Indian clothes and walked the jungle firebreaks he could draw the man-eater to himself. Although the moon was bright the shadows cast by the bushes and trees on either side of the firebreak were thick and black and could have hidden a dozen tigers. Anderson realised that he would have to rely on his hearing and his sixth sense. Like that greatest hunter of man-eaters, Jim Corbett, Kenneth Anderson had at times been aware of the presence of such an animal without having perceived any normal sensory clue. As he stalked carefully along he whistled snatches of tunes in an attempt to draw the tigress. He had walked for hours and seen a great variety of wildlife when suddenly from less than one hundred metres ahead came the moaning call of the tigress. Anderson hastened to close the gap to fifty metres before stepping behind a large tree, cocking his 405 Winchester and giving the call of a male tiger. Within thirty seconds the shape of the tigress drifted like a silent grey ghost up the firebreak toward the hunter. He remained perfectly still and waited until she had gone just a little past him before shooting her behind the ear from a range of about three metres. The tigress was dead before her body hit the ground and Kenneth Anderson, who was used to much more hair-raising conclusions, felt that it had been too easy, and in the end, perhaps unsporting. The Winchester 1895 lever action in 405 Winchester is probably not very well known these days. The model 1895 was developed with the aid of John Browning and was the first Winchester with a box magazine. It was intended to be a military rifle but was not chosen by the services. The 405 Winchester is the most powerful factory cartridge ever chambered in standard lever-action. The velocity and trajectory of its standard three hundred grain bullet was actually a little better than those of the 458 Winchester Magnum. Unlike many other cartridges of the era, for example the 45/70, the 405 was designed to use smokeless propellant, and as such, was a much more powerful calibre. With a muzzle energy of 3240 foot-pounds, the 405 was the most powerful American factory cartridge until Winchester's adoption of the 375 H&H Magnum. It was a calibre favoured by Anderson even when newer calibres were pushing it into obsolescence. He used it over a period of many decades and took all the major species of Indian big game with it, including elephant. The elephant was known as the Black Rogue and, for a full-grown elephant, he was exceptionally black and hairy. There were two theories as to why this particular elephant had turned bad. The first version was that the black elephant was badly injured in an epic forty-eight hour battle with a rival male, a fight that was witnessed by the inhabitants of a nearby village. Presumably the permanent injuries he received so aggravated him that he vented his anger on anything that crossed his path. The other proposed reason for the elephant turning rogue was claimed to be a wound received from a musket ball, the legacy of the elephant’s raiding of a village garden. Whatever the cause, the elephant in particular was a decided menace that had caused widespread death and destruction. An angry elephant can do awful things to anyone unlucky enough to cross its path. For an encore it generally picks up its victim in its trunk as easily as a child picks up a doll. It then proceeds to whack the unfortunate, with great vigour, against the nearest piece of solid landscape. A large boulder or big tree trunk preferred, but as a last resort, the elephant is not adverse to making good use of mother earth. Having thus slowed its catch down somewhat the enraged beast hurls the object of its hate to the ground and places a firm foot on it, with all that entails, and plucks off various limbs, maybe even the head, and hurls them off into the nearby bush. It then uses tusks and feet to pull the corpse’s trunk to bits and for good measure, it does a pachyderm quickstep over the remains in order to grind them into obscurity. In short, rogue elephants can be very nasty customers indeed. Anderson’s first meeting with the elephant was unintentional. He had agreed to act as a guide for an American photographer who wished to film bison. On the way, he picked up a native tracker of old acquaintance called Aachen. A group of Aachen’s clansmen visited the camp and volunteered to direct the trio to the best local spot for bison. The subject of the rogue came up briefly, but as nothing had been seen of the beast for some months it was assumed he was far removed. The next day dawned very hot. The local guides told Anderson that the bison were about seven kilometres walk. From past experience he knew he could double that figure and so with the prospect of a long walk on a particularly hot day, in addition to his having no desire to hunt, he left his rifle in camp. Having eventually cut the spoor of the bison they tracked the herd into open, park-like country that sloped gently away to a distant watercourse. Confident in the ability of the two trackers Anderson was absent-mindedly enjoying the stroll until he saw Aachen glance behind and then stop abruptly. His words were ominous, “Sir, an elephant approaches.” Anderson turned to see a black elephant only two hundred metres away. It was silently making a beeline for the group at a fast walk. Desperately, the unarmed hunter surveyed his surroundings. In all directions, the scattered trees were too small to offer any protection from a determined elephant. The only glimmer of hope was a small blip of rock nearly two hundred metres off to the right. The foursome bolted for the dim offer of salvation. The rogue, seeing his intended prey running, uttered a shrill trumpet and charged at full speed. The party dropped the camera gear and ran as hard as they could. They arrived at the rock only ninety metres ahead of the killer. The rock was a flat slab, ten metres long and a few metres wide. At its highest point, it was one and a half metres above ground level and, at the other end, not quite a metre! Anderson and his companions clambered up onto the rock and ran up to the highest end. The elephant came to rest with its chest leaning against the rock and reached out with a menacing trunk. The rogue trumpeted deafeningly and puffed and snorted as it realized that it could not reach its quarry. It then dashed off to uproot a bush, returning to flay at the cowering humans. When this failed to have the desired effect the big black aggressor bowled a large slab of rock at the humans and nearly succeeded in knocking some off the slab. After ten minutes of harassment, it suddenly occurred to the elephant to move around to the shallowest end of the rock. He gingerly tested the rock with one raised foot and, satisfied, quickly mounted the slab and charged the foursome at the other end. It was at this point Aachen saved their lives with his experience and coolness. “Jump down quickly. He won’t attempt to jump five feet to the ground with his ponderous weight, but if we leave this rock he will go around and catch one of us in the open.” The group stood on the ground looking up at the awesome sight of the enraged elephant towering above them. He reached down with his trunk and for a while stood poised with one foot in the air as if considering the jump to earth. The standoff lasted a minute or two while the rogue rent the air with shrill screams of frustration. Then with a swiftness belying its size, the elephant spun around to demount at the lowest end of the rock. With only seconds to spare the four managed to clamber back up to their original positions. For nearly three hours the deadly cat and mouse game continued with the elephant trying all sorts of ruses to catch his victims. The sun blazed down from a cloudless sky and the countryside shimmered with heat. Perspiration poured from the four on the rock and the barefooted members of the party had to constantly dance on the spot to prevent the hot surface from burning their feet. Finally, after several false alarms, where the elephant stamped off trumpeting loudly into the distance only to reappear stealthily from behind some time later, the frustrated beast eventually went off to quench his thirst. Terrified at the prospect of the rogue returning and keeping them prisoner until dark, when they would be helpless, the four men set off at a trot for the nearest village, with many a backward glance over the shoulder. Back at camp Anderson wasted no time in resting. Loading his rifle and taking a couple of the native trackers he set off after the rogue. The trail showed that the black elephant had watered and sauntered off to feed leisurely, with a few rests in the shade between times. The hunters exercised great care in approaching their quarry, but nevertheless, the elephant detected them and, somehow sensing danger, set off at a fast clip down a dry watercourse. They pursued as fast as they could and the occasional glimpses they caught of him showed that the distance between them was growing. Just as Anderson was despairing of coming to terms with the animal they rounded a bend in the river bed and found the elephant floundering in the sand not that far ahead. A cautious approach revealed an incredible sight. A small tributary stream from some permanent spring trickled into the dry river bed and at this point, the sand had become saturated. The elephant in his haste bad plunged into the quagmire and was firmly bogged right up to the belly. Even as they watched the struggling beast was sinking slowly but surely into the bog. His shrill screams were now those of terror and despair. Anderson himself had once nearly lost his life in a similar quicksand and found that he held no animosity for the trapped animal, well remembering his own horror. There was nothing that could be done to save the animal, whose life was forfeit anyway because of his murderous habits, so Anderson placed a very carefully aimed shot into the elephant’s brain. On returning the next morning with the American who wished to obtain some photographs they found that the elephant had sunk completely from view. The river bed trap was reset and awaiting its next victim as the sand glistened smooth and peaceful in the early morning light. While he had many encounters with man-killing tigers, bears and elephants, Anderson was most often called on to deal with troublesome leopards. The Sangam panther had broken into a shed in which lived a villager and his four dogs. Ignoring the dogs, which cowered in the corner, the panther killed the owner unhindered. The leopard was unable to enjoy its intended meal, however, for in attempting to drag the victim through a gap in a nearby fence it brought the sheet metal structure clattering down and was frightened off. Anderson decided to wait up for the killer to return. He chose a large, inhabited, cattle pen for his vigil. The cattle were at first restless but soon grew accustomed to his presence. So too did a host of fierce-biting cattle ticks that made the night a misery for the hunter. In the early hours of the morning, a sambar hind called on the hill above the village. Shortly after a kakar deer called also, warning the other jungle inhabitants of the presence of a prowling carnivore. The predator was clearly making its way down the hill toward the village. Anderson’s hopes rose. In the almost pitch dark the cattle in unison lurched to their feet and turned to face the lane that ran past the stockade. They stirred and snorted restlessly. All the local dogs began to whimper and howl with fear. Anderson had to carefully wend his way through the milling cattle, fearful of being trampled or hit by the tossing horns. The darkness was too thick to allow any vision so Anderson was forced to rely on his ears. He strained to hear any clue to the killer's presence over the racket made by the frightened domestic animals. Faintly from further down the lane came the noise of the big cat scratching at the door to one of the huts. At that moment the occupants of the hut set up a combined wail of terror. Anderson jumped out into the lane and switched on his small torch. Nothing was to be seen. The bedlam in the small dwelling continued and Anderson, fearing that the leopard had somehow gained entry and was murdering the inhabitants, threw caution to the winds and ran to the hut. The door was firmly locked and it took some time before he could make himself heard over the racket of the terrified group inside. He shouted for the occupants to open the door. A voice quavering with fear asked whether it was a man or devil on the doorstep. Anderson assured them that it was only himself, the hunter. The scared, superstitious villagers replied that they had no intention of opening the door to find out just who might be there until morning. Anderson now faced the daunting task of making his way back to the relative safety of the cattle pen. The light of his torch revealed deep claw marks in the wood of the door and reminded him of what was lurking close by. Keeping his back to the laneway fence, and finger on the trigger, he edged his way back to the cattle yard. A tense night passed without further incident and a weary, tick-infested hunter welcomed the early morning light. That night, fearing the risk of tick-induced fever, he was forced to chose another ambush site. He decided on the roof of the shed in which a number of dogs were kept. The villagers helped to spread straw over the roof made of scrap pieces of corrugated iron and placed a barrier of thorn branches around the hunter to give him a little more security. In the early hours of the morning the cattle and dogs once again grew restless. It was another dark night and Anderson peered over the edge of the roof straining his eyes to see any hint of movement. He caught the faintest of sounds, a soft almost inaudible snake-like hiss. The noise was repeated and seemed to come from a faintly lighter patch on the night-blackened ground directly below him. Here was a dilemma. Anderson had anticipated being able to take his shot as the leopard came down the lane toward him. In order to bring his rifle to bear on the shape below him, he would have to move forward in order to get head and shoulders over the edge of the roof. He tried to draw himself forward quietly but the rustle of straw and the squeak of protesting metal sounded loud in the still night air. An ominous growl came from the smudge below. The hunter kicked himself forward and pushed rifle and torch over the roof’s edge. The probing beam revealed the startling glow from the eyes of the panther just on the point of springing up the two metres to the roof. The point-blank blast of the powerful 405 stopped the spring in its tracks and ended the career of the man-eater. The morning light showed the leopard to be a very old female with worn down teeth, but otherwise in good health. The defective teeth would have handicapped the animal in its pursuit of natural prey and forced a change to easily caught mankind. Anderson survived this and many other close encounters with dangerous big game in a lifetime spent in the Indian jungle. He passed away from natural causes in the early 1970’s and the world bid farewell to another of the Great White Hunters. Kenneth Anderson wrote a number of interesting books on his experiences and should you come across a copy in second-hand bookshop or library, they are well worth a read. Chapter Ten - Hunter

One of my favourite African authors is John Hunter. His chief work is titled simply “Hunter” and it is a damn good read. Hunter’s career started in Kenya in 1908 and progressed through into the fifties. He saw the transition from the golden age of the game rich plains to the modern decimation of African wildlife. As a crack shot and expert on game and its behaviour, he was a top white hunter who guided the royalty and the rich on their African safaris. His experiences and anecdotes from this period would later become clichéd in the works of writers like Hemmingway and Ruark. Over the years he was called on again and again by the Game Department to cull rogues and dangerous animals. In the process, he killed over 600 lions and many leopards. He killed more rhinos than any other hunter before or since, a record he was not particularly proud of, as well as hundreds of buffalo and more than fourteen hundred elephants. John Hunter was born into a farming family in the south of Scotland in 1887. Like so many of the famous hunters, he exhibited a passion for the outdoors, hunting and fishing from a very early age. At eight he took his father’s Purdey out into the local swamp to try his hand at duck hunting and very nearly shot his foot off. His father did not, however, forbid him access to the fine shotgun and the boy soon became an experienced waterfowler. He reflected in later years that it was the early practice at snap shooting the fast and fleeting waterfowl that saved his life on many occasions when hunting dangerous big game in heavy cover. The lad soon turned to poaching for the thrills, and danger, for the keepers were more than ready to use their shotguns on poachers. Hunter considered that the pleasure he got from bagging a salmon or rabbit behind the gamekeeper’s back was no less than that he felt in later years on dropping a bull elephant with a hundred kilos of ivory. He was a wild, unruly boy who found school a great imposition, spending most of his school hours planning his hunting forays or dreaming of Africa. In early manhood, he fell in love with an older woman and was determined to marry her despite the resistance of his family. They solved the problems in a time-honoured way by offering the young man something that they knew he would be unlikely to refuse, passage to Africa. After a stint on the farm of a cousin, a crazed and brutal man, Hunter was ready to return home to Scotland with his tail between his legs. On going to draw out the last of his savings for the journey home he had a chance meeting with a fellow Scot at the bank. The result was that he found employment as a railway guard on the Mombasa-Nairobi line. In those early days, the job offered tremendous opportunity for shooting as the country abounded with game. In the early morning, lions and leopards were often to be seen on their kills from the moving train. The friendly driver would give a prearranged series of toots to acquaint the young Scot of what game was ahead. Hunter would stop the train and bag his prey and have one of the native boys help him skin it. There were apparently no complaints from the passengers as to the delay in those casual days! One day the driver gave a great series of whistles and Hunter looked out to see a herd of elephant, the first he had seen. He jumped down and gave chase with his .275 Mauser and was successful in downing a good bull. He sold the ivory for the equivalent of two months’ pay as a guard and it suddenly dawned on the young hunter that apart from the sheer pleasure of hunting there was the possibility to make a good living from it as well. Accordingly, Hunter threw in his railway job and began his career as a professional hunter shooting lions for their skins. He was not unaware of the dangers, for the local graveyard and many a tombstone marked simply, “Killed by a Lion” and of the forty or so local lion hunters about half had been seriously mauled. Knowing almost nothing of the great cats and their habits, Hunter set off with his .275 and a single native hunter to tackle the lions of the Tsavo region. Hunter and his helper developed a fairly simple approach that worked quite well. They would alight at one of the small stations in the area and with no other equipment but a rifle, cartridges, knife and water bottle, would set off through the bush until they came to one of the many shallow dongas, or gullies, that crisscrossed the area. The native helper would walk along one side throwing rocks into the weed and grass filled channel until a resting lion, or lions, were flushed. Hunter would snap shoot the flying tawny shapes with his Mauser. They never shot more than four lions in one trip as the green skins weighed over twenty kilos each and four was as much as they could both carry out. After several months of this enterprise, Hunter had developed a high level of confidence in his bush skills and one day when his helper was absent he decided to walk a few miles from his camp to a nearby hill. He took only his rifle, knife and some ammo expecting to be back in a few hours. In fact, he became hopelessly lost in the featureless scrub and wandered for days in circles before he chanced onto the railway line. It was a very close call and it taught him a lesson never to be forgotten. While recovering from the ordeal in the bush he met the young lady who was to become his wife. Before long they were married and Hunted decided to use a small inheritance to set up a transport business and leave behind the dangers of professional hunting. However the business never really got off the ground and was bankrupt within a year. Hunter returned to hunting with the blessing and encouragement of his wife. He approached a friend who was a successful white hunter. He had two clients who wanted to undertake a trek across the Serengeti to a rumoured hunting paradise called Ngoro Ngoro. No safari had ever been there and the only reports were from the few ivory hunters who had passed that way. An eccentric called Captain Hurst was said to have set up home in the crater. Hunter organised an epic foot safari across the burning dry plains, for this was before the advent of motorised safaris. After some weeks they arrived at the crater to find that all the stories were true, it was paradise thick with game. Hunter went to find Hurst only to discover that an elephant had killed him only a short time before. He arranged for Hurst’s effects to be sent back to his next of Kin in Nairobi. Some months later Hurst’s brother offered Hunter the ninety-nine-year lease on the Ngoro Ngoro crater for a few pounds a year. Hunter thought it over but finally rejected the offer because the area was so remote. He could not foresee that the development of motor transport would make the area easily available and that it would become one of the most famous spots in Africa. Thus began a twenty-year career as a white hunter that saw J. A. rise to the top of his profession. In that time he guided all manner of millionaires and European nobility. His experiences with his clients are all straight out of the pages of your typical African Safari novel. They range from the brave to the absurdly cowardly, drunks and nitwits. One spring in the mid-twenties Captain Ritchie, the head of the Kenya Game Department, laid a remarkable offer before Hunter. In the wake of a widespread rinderpest plague in the Masai grazing areas the lions had increased to record numbers and, now that the disease had passed, were taking a heavy toll of the remaining herds. Additionally, many of the Masai warriors, the Moran, were being killed and mauled in their attempts to spear the cattle killing lions. The lions hid in thick cover and hunting them on their home ground was very dangerous and several sportsmen had been badly mauled. The authorities had decided to bring in an experienced professional hunter and who better than Hunter himself? The proposal was that he would be given three months to reduce the lion numbers and as payment would be allowed to keep all skins, which at that time were selling at a premium. The offer was too good to refuse. J. A. talked the project over with his wife, Hilda. It would be possible for an experienced hunter to take ten or twenty lions in the heavy brush country in the time allotted, but, to collect a hundred would mean taking a lot of risks. They decided that it would be wise to use a dog pack to assist in the hunting of the big cats. At short notice, all that could be done was to go to the local pound and collect all the strays, and a motley collection they were too. Hunter set off for the Masai reserve with a few native porters, his pack of lion dogs and half a dozen oxen provided by the Government for dragging lion baits about the countryside. Several days trek found the party deep in the Masai reserve. The first evidence of lion appeared with the pre-dawn grunting of a nearby pride. The early morning light brought the first Masai that Hunter had met. Two Moran strolled into the camp and stood leaning on their spears. The two were out hunting lion. J. A. told them that he had been sent by the Government to kill the troublesome lions. The warriors were rather amused that someone would attempt to kill a lion with “nothing but a gun.” The Masai had no great respect for firearms remembering the ease at which they had overrun Arab slaving parties armed with old muzzle-loaders. The Moran led Hunter but a short distance to where some lions were laid up in a gully. With misgivings, J. A. released his untried dogs which ran off eagerly on the scent trail. However on rounding a bend in the donga and coming upon two large male lions sprawled contemptuously on the sand all but four of the dogs turned tail and bolted. The lions rose and snarled defiance. The two Moran raised their spears and braced them to meet the charge. Hunter dropped the first lion with a shot to the chest. The survivor leapt into heavy cover before a second shot could be fired. The four dogs ran up and worried the dead lion and J. A. encouraged the rest of the pack, which was timidly returning, to do the same. After permitting the dogs some time to recover their spirits he set off after the other lion. After some provocation by the dogs, the lion launched itself from the thick bush in a flat-out charge. One of the braver dogs tried to intercept the lion which, without faltering, flattened the dog in mid-stride. Hunter killed the lion at a distance of ten metres with a shot between the eyes. The Masai were jubilant and spontaneously went into a victory dance. The news of the white hunter’s success spread quickly and Hunter was besieged by representatives of the many scattered villages with requests to come and deal with lions that were “thicker than the grass.” Masai warrior Kirakango became Hunter’s right-hand man, proving to be one of the best trackers and bush craftsmen he had ever seen. In addition, he was absolutely fearless and was always there in the most dangerous moments when Hunter would reach behind him for the desperately needed second rifle. With Kirakango as the leader of a small group of Moran, a very successful technique was developed for driving lions down the foothill gullies to where Hunter was lying in wait. On one occasion he shot seven lions in rapid succession as a whole pride stampeded down the donga. When Hunter packed to leave only twenty of the eighty-eight skins that filled two ox carts were really prime skins. The rest were either female or poor because of age and disease, an indication of why they had become cattle killers. The Masai were quite distressed to learn that Hunter was going for there were still many cattle killing lions about. The tribesmen held a meeting with the result that they approached Hunter and informed him that they wished to buy him from the Game Department and were willing to pay five hundred cows. Hunter was flattered as it represented a fortune to the Masai with three cows being the going price for a good wife! J. A. Hunter also shot many elephants that raided the native gardens and in doing so had some very narrow escapes. On stalking through thick bush on the trail of some raiders Hunter suddenly saw the shape of an elephant through the intervening shrubbery. He fired but, strangely, the elephant did not move or make a sound even though he knew that he had hit it from a range of about eight metres. Hunter broke the action of his 500 double-barrelled Nitro Express and glanced down to replace the spent cartridge, for he always liked to have both barrels loaded. A yell from the bearer behind him warned him of the elephant’s charge. He could only fling the breech shut and swing the rifle up and fire wildly. The bullet struck the bull between the eyes and he crashed to the ground less than two metres from the shaken hunter. He was sent on another occasion to remove rhinos from a big track of thick scrub that was to be cleared for farming. All the hunting was done by stalking the animals through the thick tangled thorn bush, often on hands and knees. In three months Hunter killed 163 rhino and had many close calls. One day he disturbed three of the animals which charged simultaneously. Hunter dropped two of the rhinos with a shot apiece from his double rifle. He reached behind for tile second rifle to find that it and his stand-in bearer were well and truly gone. The last rhino thundered in and at the last moment, he tried to sidestep the huge beast. The rhino was much quicker than its size would indicate and with a deft flick of its massive head, it sent Hunter flying through the air. Luckily he was not gored and, even more fortunately, the beast did not return to finish the job. J. A. Hunter was a great fan of heavy calibres having seen, and been placed in, too many dangerous situations caused by the use of lighter rifles. He used a variety of doubles and bolt actions in calibres around the .5 mark. However, he did not like the outsized .577 and .600 rifles as he had never learnt to hold firearms firmly into his shoulder and found the resultant recoil a little too much to bear. His most relied on rifle, over many years, was a .500 d/b hammerless ejector with 61 cm barrels by Holland and Holland that weighed 4.7 kilograms. At other times he had used the .475 No 2 to great effect on control work. It was about as small a calibre as Hunter would consider for dangerous big game. On the ranking of the Big Five Hunter was quite definite. Given his career of over forty years and the fact that he shot many hundreds, if not thousands, of each species he must be considered authoritative. Additionally, the fact that he was a hunter of modern times means that his opinion is more relevant than those of the earlier great white hunters. Hunting pressures have greatly altered the behaviour of game over the last one hundred or so years. While qualifying his opinion with the rider that in the final analysis the relative “dangerousness” of an animal depends on the animal, the man and the situation his listing would be, first, leopard followed by lion, buffalo, elephant and rhino last. His book gives the in-depth reasoning behind his choice and, packed with anecdotes, makes fascinating reading. The introductory note by Captain A. T. A. Ritchie, Game Warden of Kenya, in the frontispiece of Hunter’s book says it all. “I can provide no greater tribute to his prowess than is provided by the fact that he is still alive, and when you read this book you will probably understand better what this means.” Chapter Eleven - Foran

Major W Robert Foran was born in 1881. He trained at Sandhurst and took up the military career expected of him. After serving in the Boer War he was pleased to be transferred to India. The prospect of further military action, and the chance to indulge in tiger hunting appealed greatly to him. After only a short tour of duty, where he realized both aims, he found himself posted back to Johannesburg. Here he was dismayed to learn that he was to return to the boredom of peacetime soldiering in England. At the time, 1904, Africa was a land of enormous potential and promise. Foran travelled to Mombasa and then to the newly founded settlement of Nairobi. The train trip across the Kapiti and Athi Plains overwhelmed him. Big game swarmed in uncountable numbers as far as the eye could see. Foran promptly resigned his commission and, in Nairobi, set about planning an extended safari. Nairobi in those days was an amazing place, by any standard, and some of Foran’s experiences illustrate the point. It was not uncommon for residents to complain of lions being on their verandas at night and the predations of zebras on flower gardens! At one of the first meetings of the newly formed turf club, one of the feature races was disrupted when a lion chased a zebra across the track. Not content with that, the lion killed the zebra behind the grandstand and then set about eating it! One dark night the Principal Medical Officer was cycling home from a dinner party when he had a collision with a lion. Both parties were apparently equally surprised. The lion dashed off one way and the medico the other, leaving a badly buckled bicycle lying in the street. “Such episodes as this but added zest to life in that infant Nairobi." One a more serious side, Foran noted that the small cemetery held the bodies of seven white hunters who had been killed by lions. It comes as no surprise then to learn that Foran killed his first lion within the city limits, in fact, under the Post Office steps! The Post Master, awoken by the shot, berated Foran for disturbing his sleep. Foran met another lion within the town boundary one late night when returning from a dinner party. He dashed to the nearby house of a friend and awoke him with the request for the loan of a rifle. Foran was dressed in formal clothes and his friend thought, at first, that the lion sighting may have been the result of a few too many post-dinner ports. Foran convinced the man of his sobriety and, borrowing the rifle, went off and bagged the lion. An acquaintance of Foran’s was a trader, and well known for his fear of lions. This fear reached a new height when a man•eating lion started to operate in the area. The trader spent a large portion of each night racked by nervous tension and imagining that he could hear the man-eater prowling about the house. Finally, one night he was convinced that the lion was on his veranda and, peeking through the window, could see a dull shape outside. Taking his bolt action rifle he emptied the magazine into the shape. The morning light revealed that he had blasted a large hole through a piano newly arrived from London the previous afternoon. “It was utterly wrecked and valueless after his heavy bombardment." The very next night he once again became convinced that the man•eater was stalking around the house. He could see an ominous shape drifting about the yard. The trader took his rifle and laid down another fusillade. This time he retired to bed confident that he had killed the marauder. The morning light this time revealed the District Commissioner’s mule, “stone-dead and riddled with bullets”. The District Commissioner was far from impressed and the little mistake cost the nervous trader appropriate compensation. Foran wrote a letter of hearty congratulations to the trader for having killed his first lion. Rather than being admonished, the trader showed the letter around proudly, as proof that he really had killed a lion! Foran got to know Ol Onana, the Masai Chief and developed a deep respect and friendship for the man and his tribe. After Foran had helped the Masai to recover some stolen cattle a grateful Ol Onana arranged a celebratory lion hunt in Foran’s honour. Masai lion hunts were legendary and Foran felt privileged to have been invited to witness such a spectacle. The Masai were a warrior race and the burning ambition of all the young men was to kill a lion with their own spear. They were then entitled to wear the lion’s mane as a headdress and enjoyed privileged status. Foran rode his Arab stallion as Ol Onana trotted alongside, his face a picture of fierce pride as he watched one hundred of his young warriors spread out into battle formation. They advanced on the area that the forward scouts had pinpointed. A spontaneous yell of joy, and challenge, issued from the Masai as the lion rose from its hiding place. The lion, still hundreds of metres away, growled at the advancing phalanx before turning to trot away. With silent, well-trained ferocity the warriors broke into a run, forming a crescent formation. The horns of the crescent sprinted ahead to outflank the fleeing cat. It took over three kilometres before the outstretched horns of the crescent were able to pass the fleeing lion and join the circle. The warriors then turned inward and began to contract the circle. Not a word had been spoken, the whole drama having been conducted in absolute silence. The Masai each carried a spear, a short sword and a heavy hide shield. Foran reigned-up close by the shrinking circle. He was awed by the spectacle before him. The fine, black-maned lion paced back and forward, growling and roaring in anger. The circle of warriors contracted relentlessly, their spear blades flashing in the sunlight. Foran was tingling with excitement. As if on cue the circle suddenly stopped briefly before resuming at a slower rate. Foran was impressed by the discipline and coordination of the Masai warriors. Four times the lion charged the wall of spearmen with such savage ferocity that Foran had to contain an involuntary shiver of fear. Each time though, the cat pulled up at the last instant. Not one of the warriors had moved an inch. Every spear had remained rock steady and pointed directly at the lion. ”There was something terrific and awe-inspiring in that steady, sure, silent and provocative advance”. Like a well-rehearsed chorus line, the warriors swung their spears up to the throwing position in unison. The lion realised that bluff would not work. Without warning the lion suddenly melted into a blur of tawny lightning and crashed into the wall of warriors. The wall held and there was the brief spectacle of the lion, rampant on hind legs, biting and swatting all about before it disappeared under a rush of stabbing spears. Foran was surprised that the casualties amongst the Masai were not worse. Two had received fairly severe tooth and claw wounds while another half dozen had minor claw wounds. The lion lay with more than a dozen long-bladed spears still quivering in its body. The victorious warriors stood quietly around their fallen foe. An almost religious silence hung over the veldt. Foran lent down and whispered to Ol Onana, “Whose trophy is it?” One of the warriors moved forward. One arm was badly mauled. He stooped, picked up the lion’s tail, and looked at his chief. Ol Onana looked at Foran with a serene smile before nodding to the claimant. There was no debate or argument. The trophy winner saluted the chief with his good arm. Foran administered some first aid to the two most severely mauled men. They never flinched as he poured pure carbolic into the gaping gashes and tooth holes. Foran watched as the warriors finally broke into a savage and noisy victory dance around the lion. Reflecting on all that he had experienced he decided that “That day holds a memory which can never grow dim”. Having resigned from the army and begun preparations for his first safari, Foran sought to recruit trackers and a gun bearer. An imposing African applied for the position of Foran’s gun bearer. Liking the stamp of the man, and his excellent testimonials, Foran hired him. Foran and Hamisi formed a close bond, forged in the shared danger of big game hunting. After engaging Hamisi, Foran set off on safari into the Aberdare Range, consumed by a burning desire to bag his first elephant. The party pitched camp on a spur of the range. Below was a lush valley with plenty of elephant sign. The next day Foran’s trackers combed the area. These men were Wandorobo, a tribe famous for its elephant tracking and hunting skills. They returned with good news. There was a big lone bull with exceptionally heavy tusks in the area. There followed several days of intense tracking but to no avail. There was no fresh sign of the big bull. Foran began to despair of finding his trophy but was encouraged by the optimistic Hamisi. The next day Foran climbed out of bed at daybreak and walked over to scan the valley below. To his amazement, he saw the trophy bull wandering slowly up a game trail that led directly to his camp. The huge tusks gleamed in the early morning light. Grabbing up his rifle Foran dashed off to Hamisi’s tent. The gun bearer was not there. Rather than wait and risk losing the elephant, Foran quickly told his personal servant to send Hamisi after him with a heavy rifle. The bull must have scented the camp for Foran discovered that the animal had left the track and headed off into thick cover. The white hunter trailed the elephant and soon it stopped in a patch of particularly thick scrub. It stood with ears flared and trunk stretched in Foran’s direction. Only the head was visible. Foran’s excitement was intense. Hamisi had still not arrived with the heavy rifle and might not be expected for some time. Foran hesitated, not being confident of a killing shot from where he stood. “I was confronted with that relentless, unchanging law of the jungles – kill; or be killed. I knew fear. Which would it be?” Overcoming his fear the hunter crept to within thirty metres of the quarry. Anxiety and doubt still plagued him but, gradually his nerves steadied. Remembering all the books he had read and the advice he had been given, Foran stalked even closer and decided to try for a frontal brain shot. Taking careful aim, he slowly squeezed the trigger. Just at that moment, the elephant made an unexpected surge with the result that the bullet struck it near the base of the tail! The wounded animal crashed off into the jungle, ploughing a swathe through the small trees and shrubs. Foran hesitated and lost the opportunity of getting off his second barrel. It was easy to trot after the elephant, following the path so recently blazed by the fleeing animal. Suddenly the trumpeting and commotion ahead ceased. Foran wisely left the trail and set off to, hopefully, flank the elephant. All at once the hunter found himself face to face with his quarry at very dose quarters. The elephant charged. Foran found the discipline to wait until it was very close before firing. As the rushing elephant reached for him, he shot it between the eyes and followed almost instantly with a shot to the chest at point-blank range. The elephant rolled on like a juggernaut and Foran could do nothing else but throw himself into the surrounding jungle. As he did so there was the roar of the heavy rifle discharging from just behind him. The elephant passed close by and Foran immediately struggled out of the thorn bush in which he had landed. As he popped two more cartridges into the double he looked around but could see no sign of Hamisi. Foran noted that the elephant had fallen on its front knees and was struggling to regain its feet, but kept falling back to the ground. Wishing to quickly finish the job, Foran squeezed between the elephant and the trunks of the crowding trees, narrowly avoiding being crushed in one of the elephant’s lunges. Standing next to the huge beast Foran pointed the rifle at the critical point between ear and eye. Once again , though, just as he pulled the trigger, the elephant jerked its head up with the result that the projectile missed the vital spot. The elephant leapt to its feet, and Foran realized with horror that its recent actions had not been the result of wounds. Its coiled trunk held Hamisi and the elephant’s apparent struggles were really its efforts to crush the man in its grip. With a powerful toss, the elephant threw the gun bearer through the air. He thudded into a tree trunk fully thirty metres away! The wounded elephant disappeared into the bush as Foran ran to Hamisi’s assistance. The gun bearer was lucky in that he suffered relatively minor injuries, five broken ribs and severe bruising. The bull’s long tusks had prevented him from being able to crush the man against the ground. Foran tended to Hamisi’s wounds and after getting him settled in camp, returned to finish the job. Fortunately, he found that the elephant had died a short distance from where it had nearly killed Hamisi. Foran and Hamisi had many close and exciting encounters with elephant. Once when hunting in Uganda, near the Nile, Foran came upon a large herd. It was tough hunting country, towering grass to five metres in height and a solid network of thorny acacias. It was the start of the breeding season and Foran and Hamisi found the tracks of a big bull mingling with those of a large herd of cows and calves. They debated whether or not to risk a pursuit. The presence of so many nervous cows with calves in such rugged terrain would be very dangerous. However, the promise of the big bull’s tracks was too great and the men set off to track him. Foran, Hamisi and the trackers stalked silently along the avenue ploughed through the grass by the herd. Foran had seen and heard nothing when Hamisi urgently signalled him to lay flat on the ground. The gun bearer crawled over to the white hunter and whispered, “Tembo, Bwana!” Foran peered around and could see nothing. Suddenly, like an optical puzzle, the picture resolved itself. Right beside him, screened by a veil of grass was the towering rump of an elephant, close enough to prod with rifle barrel! “I almost shouted with fright and surprise” commented Foran. Every attempt to crawl away produced the same result. The hunters had crawled into the very centre of the elephant herd. The animals were apparently taking a noontime siesta and stood still and silent, completely unaware of the men in their midst. The hunters sat still, hardly daring to draw breath. A couple of hours took an eternity to pass and eventually the strain became too much for Foran. He decided to prompt a conclusion to the incident, be it good or bad. Taking a spear from one of the trackers he stood up and swung the flat of the blade against the nearest cow’s rump with all his strength. The flat blade struck with a crack like a rifle shot and precipitated instant chaos. Foran dropped the spear “… like a red­ hot coal” and reached for his rifle from the ever- present Hamisi. The gun bearer gave a rare laugh as he pushed the heavy double into his master’s hands. Luckily the fleeing animals radiated away from the hunters and Foran did not have to resort to his rifle. Foran killed his last elephant in the Akuma Forest, on the Uganda bank of the Nile. Foran and Hamisi were stalking a bull buffalo through thick jungle. Suddenly they were face to face with a big bull elephant with fine tusks. “In Africa, it is always the unexpected that happens. We were never formally introduced, and his near presence was unsuspected by my faithful Hamisi and myself”. The bull launched straight into a charge from fifty metres. There was no time for fancy shooting in the dim light of the forest. The elephant was rushing toward them along a jungle path crowded by dense vegetation. Foran hit the bull in the chest, dropping it to its knees. The white hunter took the opportunity to hit the bull with the second barrel before it could regain its feet. The shot smacked the elephant between the eyes. The elephant did not drop dead though. With amazing speed, it lurched to its feet and rushed at Foran. With an empty rifle, and no time to reload, all the hunter could do was wait for the expected shot from Hamisi, some metres behind. The shot never came. In an instant, the elephant grabbed Foran and flung him up high into the air. Luckily he never fell heavily back to earth but landed in the top of a thorn tree. The springy canopy arrested his fall, at the cost of many toothpick-sized thorns burying into his flesh. Foran had been caught a glancing blow by one of the huge tusks and was momentarily dazed. It took a little while to struggle through the thorns and slide down the tree trunk to earth. As he did so, Foran heard Hamisi scream. Foran finding his rifle undamaged quickly reloaded and rushed over to where the elephant was trampling and tusking the brave tracker. With not a second to lose Foran fired both barrels into the elephant’s rear. The bull squealed and dashed off into the forest. Foran’s other trackers would find it dead the next day. Foran turned his attention to Hamisi. The gun bearer was terribly mangled and obviously beyond all help. Foran cradled his friend in his arms and moistened his lips with a little water from the water bottle. Hamisi opened his eyes and the two men exchanged a long meaningful glance before death took him. Foran was heart•broken. The two had hunted together for many years and had many adventures. Foran stood up and took a silent vow that he would never hunt elephants ever again. It was a vow that he kept. “In my memories of those years hunting big game, the only real regret I have is the death of my gallant African comrade”. Foran went on to lead a long and eventful life, the closing years of which he lived out in the Sportsman’s Arms Hotel in Nanyuki, north of Nairobi. At eighty-eight he had outlived all his contemporaries and an era, and he knew it. He also knew when his time was up and his final act was to order a bottle of champagne and drink a toast to himself and his adventurous life. “It was a great life, while it lasted: none better. Such adventure must make a strong appeal to all, and not just for the lust of killing. Great pleasure is to be found in the joy of living next to nature and the excitement of taking big risks. These two factors count most of all”. Foran wrote many books but the one that best details his hunting adventures is “Kill or be Killed” which was reprinted as part of the Peter Capstick series of African classics, some years back. Chapter Twelve - Wolhuter

The waterhole was dry. It was quite a disappointment for the game ranger, Harry Wolhuter, and his three askaris. They were on the long return trek from a distant patrol and both men and animals were looking forward to the promise of water and a well-earned rest. Despite the fact that it was almost dusk there was no option but to push on and hope to find that the next waterhole, nineteen kilometres away, would hold some water. Accordingly, Wolhuter left his men and pack donkeys and, accompanied by “Bull”, one of his rough Boer dogs, rode off along the track. He had no fear of getting lost in the gathering dark as he had ridden that very path many times by night a few years previously when he was a scout with Steinacker’s Horse during the Boer War. As he rode he reviewed and mentally crossed off the various animals that he had seen during his patrol. The Boer War had been a disaster for the game. Large companies of men permanently on the move back and forward across the veldt had to live as best they could off the land and the game of all species had been persistently hunted for meat. On first assuming his duties as a game ranger, Wolhuter had despaired of ever seeing the game return to its former numbers. However, with the passage of time, the animals started to slowly trickle back into Sabi Game Reserve. Wolhuter was constantly, and expectantly, searching for any evidence of new additions to the area. The trail led across a bare plain that had recently been burnt off, save for the odd patch of heavy grass. Wolhuter’s reverie was broken by the rustle of something large in one of the grass patches that the path occasionally cut through. It was too dark to see, and Wolhuter assumed that it was a pair of reedbuck who favoured the area. To his surprise the animals approached and when within three metres he could make out the unmistakable form of a pair of lions. It was a completely unexpected meeting as Wolhuter had never before seen any lion in that area. Although Wolhuter had his ever-present rifle it was too late to deal with two lions at such close quarters. He swung his mount and spurred vigorously in an attempt to extract every effort from the horse. Before the steed had time to reach full stride it staggered under the weight of the lion that had leapt onto its hindquarters. The great shaggy head of the lion brushed the ranger’s face as the beast took Wolhuter’s right shoulder in its mouth. Its grip was vice•like and the ranger gasped as he felt the crunch of its mighty canine teeth as they bit deeply into the bones of his shoulder. The horse’s frantic bucking and plunging forced the lion to lose its grip. Unfortunately, it also unseated the rider. Wolhuter tumbled heavily to the ground, landing almost on top of the second lion that was eagerly seeking the chance to grab the galloping horse by the throat. There was a moment’s hesitation, which Wolhuter later considered was responsible for his salvation. The first lion, selfishly wishing to keep its prize for itself, quickly grabbed Wolhuter by the shoulder again and, rather than killing him on the spot, dragged him away. The other lion resumed its pursuit of the horse. The ranger could hear the clatter of the horse’s hooves and the grunts of the lion together with the growls and barking of Bull who was in pursuit of the attacking lion. The lion had Wolhuter by the right shoulder and was dragging him along on his back between its legs and, in doing so, the lion’s claws cut into his trailing arms. Wolhuter had long spurs held on by heavy leather straps and these acted as brakes, as they gauged deep furrows in the ground. Whenever the spurs impeded the impatient lion too much he would savagely jerk his burden free. This sent waves of agony searing through the badly wounded ranger. Added to this was the anguish of knowing that the lion would soon make a meal of him. Wolhuter hoped that at least the lion would kill him before starting its meal. Hungry lions are apt to forgo such niceties! The ranger grimly thought that his life was at its end. However, as the painful progress continued he thought of what he might be able to do to save himself. The only prospect was his hunting knife that he carried in a loose-fitting sheath on his right hip. Twice before it had fallen out during gallops across the veldt in pursuit of game and he had been lucky to find it. The chance of it still being in the sheath after this recent struggle seemed remote. Wolhuter worked his left arm around behind him and, with indescribable joy, felt the handle of the knife in his grip. He considered several plans before deciding that the only chance lay in trying to stab the lion in the heart. The choice was a difficult and complicated one, requiring the ranger to feel cautiously for the animal’s shoulder as it strode along purring loudly. Wolhuter’s face was pressed firmly into the lion’s mane and he had to reach awkwardly across his chest and strike backhanded. He realized that if he bungled the attempt it would no doubt have fatal results. He made two quick stabs behind the lion’s left shoulder and a third stab into its throat as it roared in reaction to the unexpected attack. The lion’s blood gushed out drenching the mauled victim and, dropping Wolhuter, the lion slunk off into the darkness. The ranger struggled to his feet not knowing how seriously the lion was wounded as it continued to call loudly from nearby. Wolhuter yelled and cursed loudly in the hope of frightening the lion away. He soon stopped, however, when he remembered the other lion which he assumed would be unlikely to catch his riderless horse and could likely appear at any moment. The next course of action he thought of was to set fire to the grass. It was difficult to strike a match as his right arm hung limp and numb. Finally, when he managed to strike a match he could not set the grass alight because of heavy dew that had started to settle. The only remaining course of action was to climb a tree. Under ordinary circumstances, this would have been easy. In his injured state, it was a different story. The mauled ranger had to stumble about in the dark until he finally found a tree that he could drag himself into using his one, good arm. He struggled to climb to a height of four metres. Once there Wolhuter realized that his position was still very precarious. He was starting to feel giddy as a result of shock and loss of blood, what clothes he had left were soaked in both his and the lion’s blood and chilled him in the cold night air. As he was still bleeding heavily from the wounds he received and fearing he might lose balance or faint, he managed to undo his belt and lash himself to the tree. Meanwhile, the stabbed lion continued to roar and growl from close at hand. The animal’s cries subsided into a series of long moans and then came the unmistakable sound of a lion death rattle. Wolhuter felt a sense of relief to know that his attacker was dead. However, he had no time to celebrate because, at almost the same instant, he heard the second lion arrive back at the spot where the horse had been jumped, some sixty metres away. It quickly followed his blood trail and, on reaching the tree, reared up on its hind legs and clawed at the bark. Realizing that the tree would not prove any great obstacle to the lion, Wolhuter once again feared for his life. As he looked down he could occasionally see the bright glow of the lion’s eyes in the starlight. Wolhuter yelled at the lion and this seemed to delay its intention to scale the tree. With great relief, he heard Bull come panting up to the tree. The dog must have kept with the horse until he realized that his master was no longer in the saddle and then backtracked. The injured ranger encouraged his faithful friend who responded by distracting the hungry lion with determined barking and snapping. It was some hours before the askaris arrived on the scene and helped Wolhuter down from the tree. The remaining lion continued to prowl menacingly about, being kept at bay only by the dogs and firebrands. A quick search for the rifle proved fruitless and so the ranger armed himself with a borrowed assegai and set off for the next waterhole. His thirst was terrible and the only way of quenching it was to find water at the pool nine kilometres away. When they arrived there, having been menaced much of the way by the lion, there was no water. The ranger told his men that he must have water for his raging thirst and after a long search, they returned with some slimy remnants of a small pool. Wolhuter quickly drank all but a little of the muddy brew. His intentions to have his wounds washed with the remainder were short-lived, the pain proving too much. The next morning Wolhuter could not stand, let alone walk. His men returned to find his rifle and the horse which had returned to the scene of the attack. They also found the dead lion and brought its skin, skull and heart back to camp. They proudly pointed out the knife wounds in the heart. Initially, they had doubted their master’s story of having killed the lion with his knife. Who had ever heard of such a feat! Native bearers were obtained from a nearby village and the long journey back for help began with relays of bearers carrying the stretcher-bound ranger. It was five days march to the nearest settlement and Wolhuter’s wounds, which had not received any treatment, were by that time putrid with infection and he himself was suffering from a raging fever. On his arrival, he was treated by a doctor, unfortunately without any morphine to ease the incredible pain, before being loaded onto a train for a long trip back to the distant hospital. In the coming weeks, there were times when the doctors despaired of saving the ranger’s life. However, his tough constitution saw him eventually make a good recovery. His arm was permanently maimed but, as he himself noted proudly, he could still lift it high enough to pull the trigger of his rifle! Nor did it prevent him chalking up forty-four years of exciting service as a game ranger. Wolhuter had the lion skin and his knife put on display in his home. The knife was nothing fancy but of good steel, designed for butchering work. Some years later while on a visit to England, Wolhuter visited the manufacturer’s shop, keen to buy some more knives to take home. The young sales assistant appraised the rough looking colonial with upraised eyebrow. His apparent disdain seemed to increase as Wolhuter informed him that he wished to purchase a dozen of the blades, adding that he thought they were excellent knives and relating how a previous knife had saved his life in the encounter with the lion. With a distinctly withering look, the sales assistant replied, “Yes, they are good knives, they will also kill a sheep you know!” During his various patrols, Wolhuter had many encounters with poachers. Some of the poachers had rifles which they kept hidden in caves or hollow logs and as a result, the stocks were often attacked by white ants and the barrels became pitted with rust and choked with dirt. Wolhuter stated that he would not fire one of the rifles at any price. The poachers had no qualms about their firearms and, when questioned by him they replied that they never used to clean the bore because the rifles we better as they were! There was one particularly dedicated poacher that Wolhuter had caught a number of times. On one occasion he had an old .303 rifle and both .303 and .450 Martini-Henry ammunition. The ranger demanded the second.450 rifle. The poacher assured the ranger that he in fact only owned the one rifle, the .303. Wolhuter asked why it was that he also carried ammunition for the .450 if he did not have such a rifle? The old poacher replied that he could alter the .450 ammo for use in his .303 rifle! The ranger refused to accept that statement so the poacher suggested that if his handcuffs were removed he would show the Inkosi how he achieved the conversion. Taking a live .450 cartridge he first wriggled the lead .450 projectile from its case and emptied the black powder charge for later use. Then, taking a hammer, he filled the empty case with water and, placing a rusty old hexagonal nut over the primer, he hammered the case into the thick soft bark of a nearby tree. The resulting hydraulic pressure popped the unfired .450 primer from its pocket. He then took a fired .303 case and, by the same method, popped the fired primer out. The de-primed .303 case was recovered and the bark and water flicked out. The Martini-Henry primer was then pushed into the .303 cartridge and some of the Martini- Henry powder was poured into the case. The .450 lead projectile was hammered against a hard surface until it became elongated and thin enough to be pushed into the neck of the .303 case. The resulting projectile was overly long, but that was easily fixed by taking a knife and trimming it to an appropriate length. “Inkosi that is how I do it! If you like you can fire it!” said the poacher proudly. Wolhuter had a very definite preference that the poacher should fire the resulting concoction. Pointing out a mark on a tree some sixty metres away, the old fellow took his dilapidated rifle and, chambering the hand load, hit the mark squarely! Wolhuter had been a keen hunter before joining the game department. His shooting did not stop then either, as there was always the need to shoot meat for the pot and to cull animals when they proved to be a pest. In this regard, he had many encounters with lions, some of them rather close calls. On one patrol a group of lions attacked his oxen during the night. Only the concerted efforts of the dogs and the fire brandishing native helpers had managed to keep the lions from killing any of the draught animals. The next morning Wolhuter, fearing further, more costly predations, set off after the pride. Having located the big cats he crept close and took two shots. A lioness fell dead to the first shot but the second shot only wounded another lioness. This animal came straight toward him, coincidentally rather than intentionally he believed. A small bush hid the hunter from the oncoming feline and he was confident in his ability to handle the situation, but when he attempted to chamber the third round it refused to pick up from the magazine. Not daring to take eyes off the rapidly approaching lioness he tried again and again to chamber the cartridge. He knew that he had left camp with a full magazine. With the arrival of the wounded lioness imminent, he froze and hoped devoutly that she would not notice him and continue on her way. The cat glanced in his direction and, stopping in her tracks, she fixed Wolhuter with a fierce glare and started to growl menacingly. He stood as if frozen and he knew without looking that his native helpers were fixed rigidly themselves, not many paces behind him. The smallest movement would precipitate an attack. After what seemed a very long time the lioness suddenly resumed her trotting run. It then occurred to the ranger that the cause of the problem was probably the fact that the magazine of his .303 had not been pressed properly home. A tap with the palm of the hand clicked the magazine into its proper place. Wolhuter then had no difficulty in dropping the lioness before she could go any further. One Christmas Day a native farmer came to see Wolhuter and complained that during the night some lions had come and killed five of his livestock. The ranger saddled his horse and, after collecting a few of his native rangers and dogs, set off in pursuit. The spoor led into a patch of thick bush adjacent to the small jutting outcrop of a granite Kopje. Wolhuter told his men to give him ten minutes to get in position before attempting to drive the offenders out into the open. He proceeded to the small hill of stone and, leaving his horse, he climbed some fifty metres up the sloping face to where a rock projected out into space, offering an excellent view of the country below. The ranger called on his men to begin the drive. He was beginning to wonder just where the lions had gotten to when he heard the rattle of loose stones on the hillside behind. He spun around to discover that the lions had inexplicably decided to ascend the hill. A male presented the chance of a quick shot which Wolhuter took, sending the animal cascading down the steep slope and into the bush below. Another lion popped up and went tumbling down the kopje on receiving another snap shot. Then a lioness appeared almost opposite the ranger. On the impact of the bullet, she tumbled down to fetch up, wounded and angry, at the base of the projecting rock on which he stood. At this point with the roaring and raging lioness only some nine metres away Wolhuter discovered that he was out of ammunition. It was, and remained, a mystery to him how this came about because he was always very careful to ensure that rifles had fully charged magazines. There was nothing to do except stand very, very still and hope fervently that the lioness would continue to remain unaware of his presence and that it would succumb quickly to its wounds. There was spare ammunition in the horse’s saddlebags and there were two ways of getting it; walk past the lioness or drop over thirteen metres to the ground below. Luckily for Wolhuter, and to his enormous relief, the lioness died from her wounds and, quickly hurdling her body, he ran down to recharge his magazine. The ranger returned to his lookout position. He could hear a racket in the bush below as the beaters approached and eventually one of the askaris appeared and announced that two local tribesmen had been mauled. Wolhuter hurried down to discover two men with rather bad bite wounds on their limbs. They were bleeding profusely and had stuffed the great puncture wounds with grass and leaves to try and stem the blood flow. They had been attacked by one of the first lions that Wolhuter had shot but the lion had died before it could administer any more damage and was lying close by. The two villagers were not part of the organised beat but were from a nearby kraal, where they had been celebrating Christmas to excess with native beer and on hearing of the hunt had rushed over to join in and had managed to place themselves in the wrong place, at definitely the wrong time. Stumbling onto the wounded lion they had defended themselves with axe and spear. In fact, it was probably the spearing that had accounted for the lion. The wounded warriors assured Wolhuter that they could walk the one and half kilometres to the ranger station with the assistance of some friends. Accordingly, he set off after the remaining wounded lion and its uninjured companion, dispatching both in short order. Wolhuter did not always need to have a rifle in his hands in order to find himself in an exciting situation with big game. Like most of the Great White Hunters, he could list many very close escapes from death. He shared the universal hatred of the crocodile, having witnessed many tragedies resulting from the animal’s great strength and cunning. Returning from a long hot ride both the ranger and his horse were very thirsty. At the Sabi River, Wolhuter let his mount drink its fill and when the horse had quenched its thirst and stepped back from the water he dismounted and went to take a drink himself. On hands and knees and just in the act of lowering his lips to the water some sudden impulse made him pause. With immeasurable horror, Wolhuter realized that he was staring straight into the eyes of a big crocodile that was lying just below the surface, not a metre away. Evidently, it had been on the point of attacking the horse at the moment that the animal had finished its drink and stepped back. Wolhuter threw himself backwards and dashed back to snatch his rifle and place a shot into the reptile’s head. The ranger and his askaris spent the rest of the afternoon in pursuit of the big lizard and after a hectic chase finally finished it off. The beast was just under five metres long and of very heavy girth. Wolhuter considered that but for a slight, fresh run in the Sabi, he would not have seen the crocodile. There would then have been only one, unavoidable outcome to the encounter. Wolhuter survived the Boer War, bouts of fever, serious injuries and a lifetime of close encounters with big game. His autobiography “Memories of a Game Ranger” is worth the effort of tracking down in a library or second-hand bookshop. The final words in his book summarize the man and the era. “It was a hard life; full of risks, but we were compensated by the interesting things we saw and did”. Chapter Thirteen - Wardrop

David Grayling unearthed for me an interesting book on hunting in India early in the twentieth century. It was an account of that wonderful period and the experiences of the hunters lucky enough to have sampled it, detailing the shikar experiences of one Major General A.E. Wardrop and was titled “Days and Nights with Indian Big Game”. The good Major-General had also produced an earlier book with the marvellous title of “Modern Pig-Sticking“. Unusual for a book of its vintage, “Days and Nights…” was published in 1923, it is well illustrated with some excellent photographs. To anyone who has read and appreciated Corbett, the Major-General’s book will seem shallow and demonstrate a lack of harmony with the game, the people and the country. Nevertheless, Wardrop would have been a perfect example of the popular image of the Great White Hunter whereas Corbett was most likely considered a little eccentric in his time. Wardrop started his Indian hunting career in the 1890’s. Fairly early in the piece, he had a close encounter with a leopard and was fortunate not to have been more severely injured. He was on a three-month shooting excursion with a party of fellow officers, a well-organised foray into remote, game-rich country. On a beat of some promising looking terrain, a big leopard was flushed. Wardrop took a long shot with his double rifle and tumbled the fleeing cat. However, the leopard quickly regained its feet and made off into thick cover. The hunter missed with his left barrel as the cat disappeared into the dense scrub. Wardrop and companions followed the blood trail into the increasingly heavy undergrowth. Soon though, they stopped and decided to send in their buffalo to flush out the wounded animal. Wardrop, turning to retrace his steps, had his hat caught in a branch. As he attempted to disentangle it the leopard jumped him. Wardrop managed to fire one shot from the hip before the leopard bore him to the ground. Its rear claws sunk into his thighs and pinned him while it bit his shoulder and clawed at him with its front paws. One hand was badly gashed as the hunter struggled to fight off the leopard. The big cat gave Wardrop a quick but sound thrashing until the moment when the other hunters were almost at the scene. It then disappeared back into the undergrowth amidst a volley of shots, none of which found their mark. A light blood trail was followed and subsequently lost. Wardrop expressed the hope that the leopard recovered from its initial wound and lived to fight another day. Amongst the shooting party’s medical kit was a syringe, but inspection proved it to be broken. A makeshift syringe was fashioned from a goose quill and the deep puncture wounds were well flushed with a strong dose of carbolic acid. Within a fortnight Wardrop was back hunting. He noted that “The railway was, luckily, too far off” to consider carrying him out for any more professional treatment and so he was able to continue with his extended hunting trip. Wardrop on other occasions attended the famous organised shoots of Sir John Hewett. Like any who were lucky enough to attend them, he was struck by the majesty of the hunt and beauty of the surrounds. Long lines of elephants, with hunters perched in howdahs on their backs, beat through the great forests and the rolling open grass plains with the background towering presence of the mighty Himalayas. A huge variety of game was to be had and weapons ranging from shotguns loaded for quail to the heaviest double express rifles were kept ready for use at a moment’s notice. Wardrop was using a new .400 high-velocity double that did not fit him very well and as a result, he missed a fine tiger with both barrels. His despondency was only slightly lightened by seeing the spectacle of what followed. The tiger turned and, with a roar, charged the line. The enraged beast made straight at Sir John’s mount, and was killed by him with a splendid shot as it leapt at the elephant. Hewett did not normally approve of sitting up, but in this case relented so as to give Wardrop a chance to bag a tiger. All was arranged and Wardrop took his seat in the machan, near the tiger’s kill, with his 400 double. At four in the afternoon, in broad daylight, the tiger began to make the jungle ring with his roars as he approached the waiting hunter. Wardrop saw the animal saunter down a jungle trail and sit, broadside on, about sixty metres distant. The tiger then turned to stare fixedly at the waiting hunter. Wardrop raised his rifle and fired at the shoulder. The tiger roared as it spun around to race off into the sheltering jungle. Shikaris on elephants responded quickly to the shot and the blood trail was followed until dark and again the next morning but the tiger was not recovered. Wardrop’s spirits were at low ebb. Sir Hewett was however confident that the tiger would turn up in the near future. As it turned out he was right. Some days later another hunter bagged a fine tiger that had a fresh wound. No other tigers had been wounded and lost so the animal could only be the tiger that Wardrop had fired at. A close post-mortem examination revealed a curious circumstance. The tiger which had been sitting broadside on to Wardrop must have moved the instant it saw him raise his rifle. The bullet had struck the tiger’s forearm and ran right up the limb until it reached the chest. The path was well defined by bruising and clotted blood. Once it reached the chest the bullet had spiralled around between the ribs and the skin to exit on the far side of the animal! The result was a minor injury that had all but healed when the animal was successfully bagged two days later. The strange behaviour of the projectile was ascribed to it being one of those new-fangled high-velocity rifles. Wardrop seriously considered reverting to his .577 black powder express rifle. Hunting in Nepal under the guidance of a highly experienced local hunter described only as “C”, (possibly Corbett himself) Wardrop had better luck. A pair of tigers had killed and retreated to cover. A beat proved unsuccessful and as the kill was in the open a make-shift hide was constructed on the ground. Such a machan was unsuitable for an all-night wait so an elephant was arranged to collect the hunter at 10 pm regardless of the success of his wait. Not long after dark Wardrop heard the heavy breathing of the tiger climbing up the steep slope. The animal rested in some cover not twenty metres away and Wardrop could hear it clearly for, “he puffed like an old gentleman short of breath”. After perhaps an hour where the heavy breathing continued and the animal changed positions several times, without showing itself, the breathing suddenly ceased. In the light of a full moon, Wardrop saw a large shape come drifting silently down the game trail toward the kill. The tiger stood five metres from the crouched hunter. It was evidently suspicious of the structure before it. For some time the tiger was a picture of majesty as it stood with its forefeet on the carcass, its head held high. In the bright moonlight, every stripe and wrinkle was clearly visible. Its white chest seemed to fairly glow. The tiger was a particularly fine specimen of Northern cold-weather tiger, big and strong with a lion-like appearance due to a thick throat ruff. After a long scrutiny, it turned to feed, at which point Wardrop delivered a well-placed shot with his .470 double. In a flash, and without a sound, the big cat was gone. There was no point in looking for a wounded tiger in the dark so Wardrop summoned the elephant and retired home to bed. In the morning the big tiger was found lying dead not fifty metres from where it had been shot. Wardrop was fascinated by tigers and never ceased to be thrilled at hunting them. By his own admission, he shot a lot of tigers. In many cases, the events were straightforward and bear little telling. As with most things, it is the cases where things have not gone according to Hoyle that make the most interesting stories. Wardrop had sat up over a kill and wounded a tiger. The tiger spent several hours roaring and growling from some nearby cover. As dawn approached Wardrop felt worried for the safety of his men who would soon come along the path close by where the tiger lay. He hoped that they would exercise full care. With relief, he managed to catch their attention and turn them before they arrived at the danger spot. The head shikari, old Govind came strolling up the river bed. “Look here, Govind, you must be more careful. The tiger is badly wounded and has just been roaring from those bushes”, admonished Wardrop. Govind shrugged. ‘What is a tiger, Sahib? Death is a little thing, every man has his fate”, replied the stoic Indian. They tracked the wounded tiger without luck for some hours before returning to camp for a meal and to collect some buffalo to assist with the finding of the tiger. When that resultant exercise proved fruitless Wardrop decided to return to the spot where the tiger had been hit. They left the buffalo and skirted back around the cover. The ground they covered was a treeless plain with a scattering of yellowed grass nowhere higher than an average suburban lawn. Wardrop was leading fifty metres ahead of Govind. The hunter happened to turn and see his servant stop. Govind stared and raised his arm questioningly. He took several curious steps, the arm now pointing in an effort to define what had attracted his attention. Wardrop could not see what it was that puzzled the old shikari. Old Govind took several more hesitant steps in the direction of his questioning finger. Deciding that it must be the tiger, Wardrop broke into a run. As he did so Govind spun around and bolted toward the hunter. With three coughing grunts the tiger, previously invisible, was now in hot pursuit of Govind. In the bright morning sunlight, with not a blade of grass to obstruct the view, the tiger was the picture of fast, lethal grace. Govind, despite his earlier nonchalance, was running “all out and giving way to no fatalistic views”. The Indian whipped by within a few metres of Wardrop. Wardrop fired at the charging tiger, not twenty metres away.The bullet entered at where the neck joins the body and raked the full length of the cat. It fell but was up immediately, its attention now focused on Wardrop. Another well placed .470 crashed into the beast. Its progress slowed, but it pressed on grimly. Wardrop rapidly reloaded his double and finished the determined big cat at close range. Govind returned to shake Wardrop’s hand. His former stoicism had returned. “A man’s fate is written”, said he. The tiger was a big heavily built male that required eight men to lift it. In the days following the above incident, Wardrop tried to shoot some of the local, prolific, leopards. Armed with a 318 double by Westley Richards he sat in ambush in a machan. On the second evening he fell asleep and the rifle, both barrels loaded, cocked and with safety off, fell to the ground where the impact caused both barrels to discharge. “The rifle had luckily landed muzzle down; the other way up might have been awkward”, was Wardrop’s laconic comment. The beautiful little double was badly damaged. The stock was snapped at the pistol grip and 25 mm had been blown off one of the barrels. Some quick and excellent gunsmithing by Indian craftsmen saw the barrels temporarily pinned and an exquisite new stock fitted. Wardrop was able to take a leopard with the outfit before sending it back to Westley Richards for a complete refurbish. Not long after this Wardrop had another experience in a machan that added to the proof that not all the dangers of machan shooting were to be had from carnivores. A tiger had killed some miles from Wardrop’s camp. A local shikari constructed a rough and ready machan in a tree growing on the edge of a gully and sent notice to Wardrop. The platform was some seven metres up in the tree with a further drop of three metres to the nullah bottom. The white hunter arrived late in the afternoon. He had no sooner climbed into the rickety platform, and his servants retired, than a flock of vultures descended and commenced to tear the kill to pieces. This would not do. In a short time the voracious birds, arriving in ever-swelling numbers, would reduce both the kill and the hunter’s chance of a shot at the tiger, to nil. Wardrop scurried about the tree breaking off branches to hurl at the swarming horde but to no avail. Finally, he decided that he would have to climb down and construct some sort of scarecrow to try and keep the vultures away. He had no sooner left the machan to descend than both branches he was holding snapped and sent him plummeting ten metres to the ground. Wardrop lay flat out in the gully bottom, not unconscious, but immobilised by the impact and dazed. It was some time before he could start to regain his movements. He soon found that his left arm was badly broken (in three places, with a dislocated elbow as well, it turned out). The entire hunter’s kit was still up in the machan, including his shoes. His head spun and he felt sick and groggy. Wardrop was in country unfamiliar to him with no established footpaths or roads. Dark had settled in but the western sky still held the glow of the recently set sun. In that direction, some kilometres away lay the river and, if he could reach it, help. After some hours struggling across rough terrain in the dark, he found the river and was able to make his way to a village. The villagers gave him a refreshing drink and summoned a cart to take the injured hunter back to his camp. The unsprung bullock cart proved far too uncomfortable and Wardrop soon elected to walk the remaining distance. Early the next morning a medical missionary came and set the arm as best he could, without the benefit of any drugs. Then the injured hunter was placed in a litter for a seven-hour journey to the nearest railway siding. There followed a twenty-four-hour train trip to the nearest military hospital where “They gave me morphia, and I was glad”. The arm was reset and plastered nine days after the accident. After another nine days later he was back on an elephant and in less than a month Wardrop used his heavy double rifle to take a fine tiger. It took three shots from his .470 to down the very large male. Wardrop supposed that his injured left arm was not taking its normal share of the recoil because the second shot broke his nose. Wardrop hastily straightened his injured nose before taking the third shot, which only compounded the injury and left it crooked for life ” … for I had no means of keeping it straight”. Wardrop was impressed by the power of the .470 and on occasion noted the recovery of perfectly mushroomed soft-nosed split cased projectiles from deep inside dangerous game. He had previously used an 8 bore paradox but considered that the .470 had much greater striking power and superior range. Countless experiences like these led Wardrop to conclude on what the ideal armoury for an Indian hunter should be. His initial favouritism for outsize express rifles gave way as he appreciated the advantages of the new high velocity, nitro express cartridges. “I have shot with a Tolley D.B..470 and a .318 Westley Richards and I ask for nothing better”, although both calibres “..suffer from the curse of the H.V. rifle in that they generally give but little blood in the case of a follow up”. Wardrop felt that Sambar hunting was most exciting. “These animals undoubtedly give grand sport and I have pursued them in all parts of India”. His best Sambar measured 41 inches but was not taken in the manner that Wardrop would have preferred. It happened in 1922 when he was, once again, perched in a tree machan near a river, waiting for a tiger. During the night he had heard the tiger depart the area so had curled up to get some sleep. In the early hours, he was awakened by the splashing of some large animal fording the river close- by. The noise came from behind him and so he could not see the animal but could follow its path by the sound of its footsteps, which led right up to the hunter's tree hide. Wardrop looked down to see a big Sambar directly below him. One shot from his tiger rifle, a 12 bore firing a huge, solid projectile, flattened the unsuspecting deer. The antlers were 41 inches and Wardrop regretted that he had not come by them in a more sporting manner. Such were the days and nights that Major General A.E. Wardrop shared with Indian big game. Chapter Fourteen - Lyell

Denis Lyell was born to Scottish parents in Calcutta, 1871. As a child, he was fascinated by the books of the great white hunters such as Selous and Cumming. His greatest ambition was to emulate the deeds of which he had read. After leaving school he took up tea planting and worked in many different locations. He admitted that the prospect of access to hunting areas was one of the attractions that had lured him into that particular occupation. He found that Indian big game hunting, in the areas he was posted to, needed resources beyond his meagre means. The thick jungle required the expense of trained shooting elephants for successful hunting of big game. Handicapped in this ambition, he nevertheless succeeded in bagging a tiger before turning to pursue smaller game with greater success. While he may not have much luck in the hunting of big game, he did nevertheless have some close and memorable encounters with Indian big game. One dark night Lyell had to walk some hundred metres to the plantation office to retrieve a ledger. He had a small dim lantern and a choice of two paths, one a narrow winding native track and the other a wide carriageway. He chose the former because it was shorter. He rounded a sharp bend in the track and came face to face with a tiger. The distance between them was one and a half metres! The pair stood staring at one another. The tiger’s tail flicked from side to side, brushing the tea bushes that crowded the track. Lyell stated, “I will not pretend that I was not scared, for I was, not being used to meeting tigers in the dark. I shook the lantern in its face until he must have thought there was something wrong.” After a very drawn out twenty seconds, or so, the tiger disappeared into the undergrowth with a disgruntled growl. Lyell proceeded on his way to get the book. Once In the office, he shut the door and considered his options. There were no man-eaters active in the area that he knew of and given that the tiger had gone off in the direction of the carriageway, then the best choice was once again the narrow track. It must have been a rather tense walk back! Lyell left India for Africa in 1899 after suffering enough fevers, poisonings and other malaises to fill an encyclopaedia on tropical diseases. Even in Africa he suffered greatly from fevers and was lucky to survive on several occasions. He served In the Boer and First World Wars then went on to become one of the recognised great while hunters of Africa. He knew and corresponded at length with the other great hunters of the era; men such as Selous, Percival, Bell, Hunter, Pease and others. Lyell wrote a series of books about his experiences. With his clear style and a gift for well-delivered anecdotes, his works are very readable. For instance, at the end of a chapter on trophy measurement, in particular, the measurement of skins, Lyell relates an amusing yarn. “There is the story of an old Indian Colonel who was boasting in a smoking room of shooting a 12-foot tiger. An angler sitting nearby immediately told a story of catching a skate a quarter of an acre in extent. The Colonel promptly challenged him to a duel, so the angler said, ‘If you’ll take two feet off that tiger, I’ll see what can be done with the skate’.” One of Lyell’s most vivid recollections of Africa was the spectacle of a charging elephant. He had faced many charges, but never one where the elephant displayed such fierce intensity. What made it particularly memorable was the fact that the animal had charged in absolute silence. The elephant gave vent to no squeals or trumpeting as it rushed at him from about eighty metres distance. Its trunk was curled up tightly and held low and, as it swept across the grassy clearing, its fast shuffling gait generated a distinct swishing sound that, in the circumstances, was surreal. It had happened near the Luangwa River in 1908. Lyell and his trackers had found the spoor of a large herd of elephant and followed it for some kilometres before catching up with them. Most of the herd had entered thick bush. On the edge of the forest, in fairly open country, a few stragglers still browsed. Amongst these were three smallish bulls. They were not carrying much in the way of ivory, the biggest having tusks of about fifteen kilograms apiece. At the time Lyell was hunting for ivory, not trophies, and so he worked into a position where he could get a clear shot at the best tusker. Lyell, like that great elephant hunter, Bell, preferred smaller calibres for elephant when conditions allowed the shot to be well placed. On this occasion, Lyell was armed with a 303 sporting rifle by Gibbs and had the magazine loaded with heavy solid projectiles. The hunter placed a carefully aimed shot into the elephant’s head, just forward of the ear hole. The animal flopped to the ground as if brain shot, but within moments began to trumpet loudly and struggle to regain its feet. The noise alarmed the herd and they stampeded. However, a portion of the herd emerged from the forest and fled straight toward where Lyell and his men were. They were out in the open and so had to run to find trees to hide behind. Before running off, Lyell paused to put another bullet through the elephant’s ribs, just behind the shoulder. The animal, which had just regained its feet seemed not even to notice the impact of the second shot. The trees were little more than saplings but provided enough cover to shelter the hunters from the rushing elephants. Lyell looked for the wounded elephant and soon spotted him some eighty metres away. The wounded pachyderm was not following the retreating herd but, with the humans fixed in his vision, was making straight for them at a fast pace. Lyell settled into a comfortable lean against the tree in front of him. The elephant was closing the distance between them rapidly but there was nevertheless time for several well- placed shots. It would be a good test for the 303, for the front on brain shot on a charging elephant is not easy. In that situation, the hunter using a small calibre must be precise in his bullet placement whereas the much greater impact of the heavy big bores allows a margin for error. Two 303 projectiles clapped into the elephant’s forehead, but the only result was that the beast shook its head and increased its pace. Lyell was still cool but admitted to a growing “anxiety”. Like an approaching storm, the elephant was sweeping toward the hunter. It occurred to Lyell that he was aiming perhaps a little high. Allowing for the fact that the elephant was now much closer, and presenting a different angle, he aimed his last shot lower. The result was instantaneous and relieving. The big pachyderm flopped down in mid-stride. The ground shook as the mountain of flesh bounced and slid, its considerable momentum taking it to within a couple of paces of the rifleman. The white hunter looked around. His trusty native bearer had stood his ground too. “Kalenje, who was a very plucky fellow, was looking green, as he usually did when close to elephants …. This was the best kind of bravery, as it is nothing to be brave when one is not afraid. I may have been green too, but did not have a mirror handy to look at my face”. On another occasion, Lyell was after a big bull whose tracks he had been following for some time. His armoury was a 303 Lee Enfield and a single-shot 450/400 cordite express rifle. He had bought the 400 second-hand from another hunter who, by tampering with the firing mechanism, had instilled a nasty habit into the rifle. When cocked, and with the safety on, it would sometimes discharge of its own accord! Lyell had stripped the action and carefully reassembled it and thought the problem cured. The white hunter and his party of African followers stole through the bush. There was no way of knowing when they might come upon the elephant and so the utmost care was necessary. Lyell’s tracker led the way while Lyell followed with the 303 and a gun bearer carrying the 400. Both rifles were loaded and cocked, with safeties on. Further back a line of bearers followed. As the group proceeded through thick, hot scrub the tension, and silence, was suddenly broken by the roar of the 400 going off. The bearer who had been carrying the 400 was prostrate on the ground, “He had both hands over his ears and was saying that he was dying”. The discharge of the heavy recoiling rifle had dazed the man. Lyell was greatly relieved to see all five of his bearers still on their feet. Until moments before the rifle had discharged the hunting party had been spread out in single file on a short straight stretch of path. The 400 had been carried with the muzzle pointing rearwards and Lyell considered a slight dog-leg in the path had probably saved his men’s lives. He had no doubt that if the weapon had fired a few seconds earlier its heavy solid projectile would have drilled the lot of them. The discharge of the rifle was a disappointment, for the elephant, a kilometre or so ahead, would be alarmed and would widen the distance between them. Hours of effort to reduce that distance would have been spent in vain. The treacherous 400 was left unloaded, Lyell decided he would load it only when ready to shoot. The hunters pushed on apace. It was hard going in the blazing African heat. They followed the elephant’s tracks through varying sorts of terrain. On occasions where they found the animal’s dung, the head tracker tested it with his toes. Each pile of dung proved to be fresher than the last. Once again they were closing the gap. At last, after hours of pursuit, they came upon a lush little valley. They all knew that the big bull would be resting somewhere in the little oasis. Before long the elephant was visible. It was a fine specimen with big tusks. The bull was out in the semi-open bush and was restless and suspicious. The elephant was about eighty metres distant and was moving about nervously. In those circumstances, a precise shot with the 303 was not on. The only chance was to take a body with the 400 single shot. A few intervening saplings hindered his aim for the elephant’s shoulder. Fearing another premature discharge, Lyell rushed his shot. The projectile glanced off one of the trees and hit the elephant too far back. The big bull made off slowly and Lyell decided to chance another shot with the 400. He reloaded but, before he could even bring the rifle to shoulder, the rifle discharged itself once more. The unexpected recoil twisted the rifle out of his hands and ripped the skin off his fingers. The hunter hastily grabbed his 303 but it was too late. The wounded elephant was gathering speed and weaving its way deeper into the surrounding bush. The hunters maintained the pursuit until dark. Luckily they came to another small valley with water and Lyell was able to shoot a zebra for his men. The bearers gorged on the meat until late in the evening then slept like logs. It was a pitch black night and the fire provided some warmth but did little to illuminate the surroundings or to discourage the mosquitoes. During the night a lion prowled around the makeshift camp. Lyell stoked the lire and sat with his 303 but did not need to use it. After a while, the lion moved on. The next morning they took up the tracks of the wounded elephant but, despite finding where the animal had rested, they failed to recover it. Lyell was very disappointed, not so much at the loss of the ivory, but by the fact that a wounded animal had escaped. Lyell had a strong personal obligation to minimise the suffering of the animals he hunted. He had a strong interest in animals and often got as much pleasure in observing their antics as he would in obtaining a good trophy. On one occasion Lyell was walking along a native path, travelling from one camp to another. He was accompanied by one of his domestic servants who carried his rifle. They came upon a small herd of elephants, composed of cows and calves that were feeding on a grove of wild plums. Using his experience, Lyell was able to sneak around the animals and wait in a position where he knew the elephants would soon pass by. Before long the herd did just that. Lyell and his helper sat behind the hulk of a tree stump as the big animals drifted in toward them. Of particular interest to Lyell were the antics of two old cows each of which had a small calf. One of the calves was trying to suckle from its mother who was busy browsing. She pushed the calf away several times. The calf was persistent however and several times the mother gave it a resounding whack across the rear with her trunk. The calf ran off squealing indignantly. The cow had now gotten too close, being less than twenty metres away. Lyell’s servant, whose normal duties were confined to housekeeping, had never been so close to live elephants and, as a result, “looked faint”. The man’s expression did not improve when the wayward calf ran up and began to satisfy an itch with some lusty rubbing against the stump that hid them. For a joke, Lyell leaned forward and gave the elephant calf a hearty smack on its ample rear. With a squeak of fright, the calf bolted for the protection of its mum. Like all good mothers, she objected to strangers hitting her offspring and for a few moments things looked nasty. Lyell had no wish to shoot and by standing up and waving his hat he was able to shoo the herd away into the bush. Details of this and some other, similar, episodes filtered back, via the native servants, to Lyell’s peers. Such behaviour while not widespread was not uncommon either. Lyell remembered an officer who used to “slap the sterns of rhinos for a joke”. Lyell had some exciting encounters with buffalo when he was hunting them in the Chiromo Marsh in Nyasaland. A fire had recently passed through but, because the grass was fairly green, had not cleared the ground. The tall heavy grass was tangled and the ashes from the fire choked and begrimed all who ventured into the mess. On top of this, the summer sun blazed unmercifully to create an oven-like atmosphere. It was just after dawn, and already hot when Lyell and his men took up the spoor of three big buffalo bulls that had just retreated from a night of feeding in a native garden. The animals had gone straight into the nearby cover of the heavy grass. Lyell climbed a termite nest and spotted the buffalo. The head and shoulders were all that were visible of a fine bull. Lyell, perched on top of the ant nest, took a shot with his 404 Jeffery-Mauser. The rifle had a heavy, creepy trigger and this caused Lyell’s shot to hit lower than he had intended. Nevertheless, the bull was hit hard and his spoor was heavily marked with blood. The three buffalo had ploughed off through the tangled grass together. Lyell and his trackers took up the pursuit. Alter many kilometres of hard going through the dense growth in the intense heat Lyell got another chance for a shot. The 404 knocked the wounded buffalo over but it regained its feet and disappeared into cover before another shot could be fired. Lyell marvelled at the tenacity of the tough old bull. The wounded buffalo now separated from its companions and, to the relief of the hunters, made its way out of the dense grass and headed for the more open bordering forest. Before long they caught up with the wounded beast. Lyell hit him with another well-placed bullet which merely prompted a charge. While the rest of the party rapidly scaled nearby trees Lyell and his gun bearer managed to evade the bull by sheltering behind a bush. As soon as the opportunity presented itself Lyell put the big bull down for keeps with a raking shot from his 7.9mm Rigby-Mauser. A dangerous and demanding chase of six hours through the most difficult terrain on a scorching hot day had ended in success. A few days later some natives implored Lyell to shoot the buffalo whose garden raids threatened starvation for the farmers. Lyell was armed only with his small rifle, the 7.9mm Rigby-Mauser. He shot four of the marauding buffalo but despite his careful shooting, two still managed to run off into a nearby swamp. The wise thing would have been to wait an hour or two for the animals to stiffen, or die, from their wounds. It was another terribly hot day and Lyell wished neither to prolong their agony or his own return to a distant camp. Accordingly, he set off to finish the wounded animals armed with only his light rifle. In knee deep mud amidst a mass of tall reeds the hunter ploughed along on his unpleasant quest. The fact that he almost tripped over the carcass of one of the animals that had died of its wounds served to remind him of the need for supreme care and vigilance. Amidst the dense and crowding reeds, Lyell and his following helpers stopped every few paces to listen carefully In the hope of hearing the breathing of their quarry, which may have been lying in wait only metres away. This proved to be the case as suddenly the buffalo struggled to rise from the mud only two metres from Lyell. The deep mud hindered its intentions and Lyell was able to finish it with two quick shots at point blank range. Like others of the great white hunters, Lyell was a firm believer in post-mortem examinations of animals. He advocated that newcomers to Africa should make a point of closely examining their quarry during butchering and take notes on the size and location of the vital organs. This sort of knowledge would allow the hunter to successfully, and humanely, bag his quarry. Lyell was committed to the idea of fair chase and the quick and humane dispatching of animals. He deplored the shooting of game from motor vehicles and even aeroplanes and recommended that the strictest laws be enforced to ensure fair hunting on foot. There is an interesting example of his feeling on the issue of fair chase. At one time he owned a farm in Rhodesia. When he needed meat he would take his rifle and shoot some game. Lichtenstein’s Hartebeest were common in the area and it was these that Lyell normally culled his meat from. The Hartebeest, although not noted for being the smartest of game animals, could nevertheless, at times, prove very wary. So it was that the best-horned bull, in the herd of Hartebeest that Lyell hunted regularly, proved to be a very evasive target. Lyell got to know the animal from his tracks, which were very distinctive due to a missing chip from one of the hooves. Despite often seeing the animal in the distance and regularly seeing his tracks, Lyell was constantly frustrated from getting the animal firmly in his sights. The pursuit of the wary Hartebeest gave Lyell a lot of fun and interest in his spare time. Despite many careful stalks and ambushes, the bull continued to avoid the hunter. “At last, I did what I think was a mean thing”, confessed Lyell. He climbed a tree near one of the animal’s favoured spots and sat motionless in wait. Just on dark, and with the utmost caution, the Hartebeest warily approached and presented an easy shot. Lyell admitted, “He died, and I helped to eat him; but if the thing were to happen again, I would kill him fairly or let him go, as I do not consider I quite played the game”. Hippo were a popular target for meat hunters and their fat was prized for cooking purposes. Lyell took his share of these animals too. In 1906 he was travelling the Zambezi when he stopped at a river-side fort belonging to the Portuguese. One of the officers from the fort suggested that Lyell should shoot some of the local hippos which were in the habit of tipping over native canoes and had, in fact, recently killed a man. Lyell had a new rifle that he wished to blood. It was a beautifully made falling block 303 by Fraser. It had a fine enamel plated foresight and the few shots that Lyell had taken at a target had proved it to be a very accurate rifle Indeed. Lyell and his men paddled upstream in a dugout. They had only gone a few kilometres when the hippo were sighted lazing on a sandbar several hundred metres ahead. Lyell went ashore and alter a careful stalk was able to get within thirty metres of the hippo. Lyell took four shots from his single shot 303 before letting the remainder of the herd escape. Each shot had struck home perfectly and the fact that the hippos had each sunk without a splash indicated that all had died instantly from a brain shot. It was undoubtedly the herd of hippo that had been causing the trouble and all the animals were suffering old wounds which probably accounted for their bitter disposition. On another occasion, Lyell found himself on the Zambezi on Christmas Day. He and his men were camped on a sandbar in the Lupata Gorge. The party needed meat and, conveniently, there were four hippos nearby. Lyell shot one which was quickly recovered and butchered. As Lyell sat on the sandbar in the tropical heat making the most of his Christmas dinner of tough hippo steak and boiled rice he thought of his friends and family back home in England and the fine food they were no doubt enjoying. They were probably listening to carol singers too. Lyell was hearing the grunt of a lion as it made its way to drink at the banks of the Zambezi. Comparing his surrounds to theirs he decided that, “I did not envy them much. as I was happy in the wilds of Africa”. For anyone wishing to read more of Lyell’s adventures, a modern reprint of “Memories of an African Hunter” was released as part of the Peter Capstick series of African classics. Chapter Fifteen - Blunt

Commander David Enderby Blunt was invalided out of the Royal Navy in 1919. He had spent fifteen years in the service, many in submarines. He drifted through a variety of jobs, both good and bad. It was in 1925, however, that he was offered the job that captured his imagination, that of a Cultivation Protector with the Game Preservation Department of Tanganyika. It was here that he once again put into practice the deadly principles he had employed so successfully when stalking shipping in the cold waters of the North Sea. During the next six years, Blunt was an active part of the Elephant Control Scheme. In his first year, actually seven months of hunting, he shot ninety crop-raiding elephants. The obvious dangers of the job only spiced what was an exciting and action-packed life in the bush of Tanganyika. A fascination with elephant developed from his constant, close experiences with these animals. While he shot many of the large beasts, it was not wanton slaughter but the disciplined implementation of a government policy to keep the elephant in the national parks in order to minimise the destruction of native gardens. In the twenties, the combination of increasing elephant numbers and spreading cultivation forced the authorities in Tanganyika to undertake a culling program. A large part of the blame for this was due to the banning of traditional, but cruel, native methods of hunting elephant. There were several popular techniques. One method, commented on by various early hunters and explorers, was that of a large, heavily weighted spear slung from a tall tree and released by tripwire. Not a few unwary travellers had found themselves transfixed by this lethal device. Other techniques consisted of pitfalls, setting of encircling fires, foot snares, poisoned arrows and hamstringing. Native hunters had used muzzle-loading firearms for centuries, but with a high incidence of wounding and a small success rate. Other factors which had contributed to the upsurge in elephant were the government rules that had made elephant licences very expensive, the complete protection of cows and calves and the fact that only bulls with tusks over thirty pounds weight could be legally shot. The result of this was a scarcity of big, legal-sized, bulls and a plague of all other varieties of elephant. Many of the European hunters were unwilling to pay for licences when given the small chance of success on “legal” elephant. Elephant are highly intelligence and the guidelines for their control relied on this for success. The intention was not to shoot all crop-raiding elephants but to kill several from each raiding herd as “lessons with intention of teaching the big beasts not to raid cultivations." For this reason, the cullers were under instructions to only shoot the raiders at the scene of the crime, so to speak. This was not always possible and any persistent raiders were pursued with deadly intent. One constraint was that cullers were to avoid shooting any big, legal-sized bulls. These were to be left for licence holders. The crop protectors were told to fire over the heads of such big bulls, to scare them off. It did not take the cunning old elephants to work that out and they began to stand their ground. Under these circumstances, a number had to be shot by the cullers. Each of the Cultivation Protection Officers had large areas to cover and each had a staff of native cullers. Blunt found that his men needed fairly close supervision because … “these armed cultivation guards unless adequately controlled, will certainly pay less attention than they should to their duty of shooting elephant raiders and more than they ought to shooting antelope for meat”. Blunt stressed that on no account were wounded elephant to be left to suffer but must be finished off. He allowed his men six rounds per elephant for this purpose while realizing that the better shots would average two or three rounds per elephant and employ the remainder for obvious extra-curricular activities. One of the complications here was that many of the tribes in the area were Muslim and, as such, elephant flesh was classed with that of the pig and so could not be eaten on religious grounds, whereas antelope was quite acceptable. On one occasion, very early in his career, the Senior Game Ranger visited Blunt’s camp. He was not impressed by Blunt’s battery which consisted of a .416 bolt action, a .303 and a double- barrelled twelve bore black powder express rifle. The senior ranger declared that the .416 was a good buffalo gun but that the only gun for elephant was his .450 No 2 double rifle. Blunt was very new to the job but had already shot a couple of elephant with the .416, as well as a large variety of other game. He was proud of his .416 and determined to prove its worth as an elephant calibre. The very next day Blunt broke camp early and started off on a six-hour march to his next destination. He preceded the porters, accompanied by a local native guide who carried the .416 and eight rounds. After a couple hours of trekking, the pair passed through a small village where it was obvious that elephant had only just left the maize fields after a night of gorging. Blunt sent his guide off to find the headman, who told him that the elephant had been in residence for a week and had done much damage. The herd had normally sheltered by day in a nearby patch of bamboo but that morning had moved off to parts unknown. With the arrival of the porters, Blunt decided to stay the night in the hope of encountering the raiders. The guide and the headman led the party to a nearby camping spot, passing down a dry river bed. The guide suddenly stopped and listened carefully before cautiously climbing the river bank to peer over the top. He turned and beckoned Blunt to join him. There stood four elephants between a few stunted trees amidst thin, but shoulder-high grass. The elephant were facing away from the men and the wind was perfect. Blunt walked up close and brain shot the smallest. This exposed the shoulder of the largest of the group and Blunt heart shot this animal. He then spun around and fired at a third elephant which staggered and commenced to fall. The second, wounded, elephant was circling, apparently looking for the hunter. As the big elephant approached Blunt, it fell to a frontal brain shot. The remaining elephant had sagged against a tree and Blunt quickly finished it off. The white hunter felt quite pleased with three elephants in as many seconds. Blunt kept the lone survivor, a cow, in his sights, but she offered no threat and so he let her escape into the bush. Blunt dispatched a runner to tell the senior ranger that “… the old buffalo gun had accounted for three elephants”. Following this success with his 416 Blunt was keen to try his black powder twelve bore. The gun had been given to him by a relative who had used it in India to take leopard and tiger. Before long he had an opportunity. Blunt crept up to a herd of raiders and aimed at the shoulder of one of the eight animals. There was the usual commotion but Blunt could see nothing for he was enveloped in a cloud of smoke that seemed to take ages to dissipate. The experience made him fully appreciate the tribulations, handicaps and dangers that the early hunters had to contend with. As the cloud finally cleared he caught a glimpse of a sick looking elephant disappearing into heavy cover. The animal was badly wounded and had not gone far. The hunters quickly overtook her and Blunt finished the job with his 416 rifle. Not long after this, he tested the twelve bore on a dead elephant. The huge lead projectile, fired from a range of three metres, merely flattened against the skull. One of the easiest ways to shoot marauding elephant was to catch them in the gardens. This could normally only be done at night. Blunt acquired a light source provided by a flare pistol for this night hunting. Blunt found that the Verey flare provided sufficient, if brief, light for him to shoot, with confidence, a couple of elephants. Most times such night shooting forays were impromptu events. The hunter would be awoken from his sleep by a torch-bearing native runner. He and his bearers would quickly dress and collect their gear before setting off on a narrow, winding path through thick thornbush country in the pitch dark. A fumbling walk of an hour, or more, in such conditions would suddenly find them a native hut in a small clearing. With no idea of the terrain or the location of the gardens and the elephant, they would follow the garden owner into the dark, straining to hear any evidence of the raiders’ presence. Once located, there came the even more nerve-racking approach to the feeding herd. Once the hunters thought that they were close enough Blunt would tell the man carrying the pistol to “Fire the bunduki ya taa (gun of light)”. In the sudden glare, Blunt would quickly assess the situation and then shoot one or more of the elephant, often at very close range. On more than one occasion the hunters found themselves in the midst of a milling, trumpeting herd of alarmed elephants and needing a second flare to finish a wounded animal. And occasions the operator of the bunduki ya taa would forget how to reload or lose the pistol in the dark. Their night vision blinded by the first flare, the hunters would find themselves in absolute darkness. Experiences like these led Blunt to declare that “For sheer excitement, I don’t think this night hunting can be equalled”. There were episodes that, in hindsight, were quite amusing. After many nights of chasing a persistent lone raider Blunt and, on a particularly dark night, they had carefully stalked the elephant using the sounds of its feeding as a guide. After a tense drawn-out final approach, the men crouched low to the ground hoping to see the elephant’s huge frame against the faint glow of the night sky. About twelve metres away they could make out a towering object. They took their stations and up went the flare. Blunt found himself on the verge of shooting a mango tree. A few metres away, the real culprit crashed into the bush. There was no point in taking a tail end shot and so the men watched the raider escape once again. In 1926 Blunt was given a respite from his elephant hunting duties. The Veterinary Department researchers were keen to breed a strain of water buffalo that was immune to the effects of the tsetse fly. They reasoned that if they could cross water buffalo with the cape buffalo then the resultant hybrid might be what they were looking for. All they needed were some young buffalo. Thus Blunt found himself on secondment near the Rufiji River. The area was terribly hot and rampant with fever and other complaints. It took weeks to reach the spot because Blunt was hampered by the slow pace of several hundred goats. All water had to be dug for, forage was hard to find and every night the herd had to be encircled with a thorn boma in order to protect them from prowling lions. The goats were to supply the necessary milk for the young calves that Blunt was to catch. The instructions from head office were quite simple; corner a herd of buffalo and catch a few calves. Easier said than done! The experts had at least been right in their belief that buffalo were thick in the area. There were herds running into the thousands. Blunt focussed his attention on herds of less than a hundred. His plan was to stalk in close to such a herd and search for a cow with calf at heel. Ideally, the calf would remain by its mother after Blunt had shot her. The conditions were very trying. The plain was covered In thick, tough grass that grew to a height of two metres. A fire had swept through some months earlier leaving the stalks even tougher and covered in soot and ash; dreadful stuff to walk through. The difficulties were compounded by the blazing, unrelenting heat. It took days of hard effort before Blunt was in a position to try his theory. Proceedings did not run according to plan, however, for, in true buffalo behaviour, they detected the hunter and formed a protective circle with the calves at the centre. All Blunt could do was to pick out and shoot three of the cows. One of the cows proved to be in milk but the calf had not stayed behind. Blunt’s trackers set off to spore the herd while the white hunter waited for the men with nets to arrive. They then followed the herd for over an hour at which point Blunt decided to call off the chase. They had not seen hide nor hair of the expected calf. The party sat down to rest before making the return trip. Blunt lent back to enjoy a cup of tea and a cigarette. Suddenly one of the bearers crawled up to whisper that a buffalo calf was approaching. There was no time to rig the nets so the men merely got off the game trail and lay still. The calf was virtually a yearling, being half grown and with little four Inch horns. The calf kept his nose to the trail as he backtracked trying to scent his mother. It got within half a metre of one of the waiting porters but the man seemed overawed and did not react. Blunt dashed forward and tackled the youngster. The little buffalo was far too strong for one man and he shook Blunt off and turned to bolt. As he did so Blunt caught hold of his tail. The white hunter remembered having been told that a donkey whose tail was held could not kick, “but this donkey could, and let out with both hind legs…” Blunt was lucky in that the powerful kick just missed his face. Wisely he let go and the buffalo rampaged off surrounded by a yelling mob of natives. The melee bumped off trees and ant heaps and more than once the young buffalo bested his attackers. Finally, the numbers told and he was pulled to the ground in a seething, dusty scrum. Unfortunately, the call died shortly after, apparently of shock. Some days later Blunt and his men chanced on another loan calf. On finding itself surrounded it unhesitatingly charged the white man and delivered a powerful butt straight to his ribs. The pair fell to the ground and in a moment the scouts ran up and they had the calf.”It was great fun but less so the next day when my bruised ribs made me very uncomfortable”. Unfortunately, this calf died as well. Not long after Blunt developed a fever which eventually turned into an attack of typhoid and “so ended a most exciting sport”. Blunt had firm ideas on the ethics of hunting. He deplored shooting from vehicles and stressed the importance of fair chase and marksmanship. The first shot was critical, he believed and quoted the experiences of soldiers who had survived multiple gunshot wounds and were unaware that they had been hit more than once. Blunt felt that the same applied to game and was the reason why animals could soak up large amounts of lead after a poorly placed first shot. Blunt recommended that if the hunter was at all uncertain of placing a fatal shot then he must hold his fire, even at the risk of losing the animal. He added that no hunter should fire at an animal unless he was prepared, in the case of wounding, ‘to follow wherever it goes to finish it off”. This applied to all game, but even more so too dangerous big game. The white hunter felt that the sport of elephant hunting could easily become an obsession, “…it gets into the blood”. He thought that a sportsman may have a surfeit of hunting all other game, “…but not elephant”. On the subject of elephant charges, Blunt stated that he had been charged so seldom he did not feel qualified to comment. His experiences indicated that what was often taken to be a charge was in fact merely the attempt of a confused animal to escape danger. Blunt noted that in heavy cover It was often difficult to determine the source of a rifle shot. He believed that the lessons of unseen attack he learnt in the submarine service helped him to avoid repercussions when hunting elephant in his travels. Blunt had his share of interesting experiences. Obtaining bearers was often a problem. Particularly when elephant hunting, it was sometimes hard to persuade bearers to shoulder heavy loads and set off, leaving a feast of meat behind. There was a period, however, when Blunt could just not keep his bearers. Every day large numbers of his porters disappeared. Some of the villages that he entered appeared to be deserted, only frightened old people being left behind. Eventually Blunt managed to extract the reason from a scared old man. A rumour was circulating that he was employed by the government, not as a hunter, but to cut the throats of natives and send the blood back to Dares Salaam. Blunt tried to convince the populace that it was a lie, but they refused to believe him. His story was outlandish! Why would the government employ someone to shoot garden raiding elephants? Blunt suspected that the story was circulated by poachers who feared detection if Blunt were free to travel widely. The story faded slowly, although other white officials occasionally found villages fleeing their arrival, in fear of the dreaded “Bwana Nyama” (Blunt). There were various other hazards to travel, apart from reluctant bearers. Thieves were rampant in some areas, and were so determined; constant vigilance was needed to avoid their predations. Blunt thought that “providing the victim is not oneself, their acts of robbery rather savour of sport and are amusing”. He went on to recount the story of a travelling Indian trader who made his bed on top of his goods. Sometime during the night, he was carefully lifted off, only to be replaced when all the stores were stolen. He awoke after an uninterrupted sleep to find his bed considerably closer to the ground than the previous evening. In the nineteen thirties Blunt wrote a book of his experiences. Titled “Elephant”, the book was well received. A modern reprint was released some years ago and will probably still be available in some areas, for those keen to obtain a copy. A large section of Blunt’s book was devoted to a detailed, and interesting, natural history of the elephant. Blunt dedicated the book to “Pemba Moto, my African tracker and faithful companion in the bush..” About Don Caswell

Don Caswell spent a lifetime living and working in remote places, pursuing a career in the resource industries. Don has always enjoyed writing and since 1981 has been a freelance writer for outdoor, fishing and hunting magazines.

Since leaving the resource industry to pursue personal interests, Don has had more time to devote to hunting and writing projects.

Apart from increased publication of his stories and reviews in the SSAA magazines, Don has also established the popular website https://aussiehunter.org/ and posts detailed stories and reviews several times per week. He also posts Instagrams each day.

When not hunting and writing, Don pursues his passions, such as bird watching, wildlife photography, kayaking, fishing, landscaping, gardening and cooking.