Cairo to Kisumu : $b Egypt—The Sudan—Kenya ColonyCarpenter, Frank G. (Frank George)
History
Cairo to Kisumu : $b Egypt—The Sudan—Kenya Colony
Carpenter, Frank G. (Frank George)
Egypt -- Description and travel; Kenya -- Description and travel; Sudan -- Description and travel
One of the best places to shoot an elephant is through the eye or halfway
between the ear and the eye. Another good shot is just back of the flap
of the ear, and a third is in a place on one side of the tail so that
the ball will run along the spine and enter the lungs. Large bullets and
heavy guns are used. When the animal is close it is exceedingly dangerous
to shoot and not kill. When injured the elephant is very revengeful. He
will throw his trunk into the air, scream, hiss, and snort and rush after
the hunter, knocking him down with a blow of his trunk and charging upon
him with his great tusks. If the man falls, the huge beast is liable to
kneel upon him and mash him to a jelly.
One of the difficulties of hunting elephants is the fact that it is not
easy to distinguish them in the woods, as they are of much the same
colour as the trees. A traveller here tells me that he once almost walked
into a big elephant while going through the forest. He was stooping down
and looking straight before him when he saw the beast’s legs and took
them for tree trunks.
The average elephants of this region can easily make six miles an hour
while on the march. They usually travel in herds, young and old moving
along together. Notwithstanding their enormous weight, the animals can
swim well, and can cross the largest rivers without any trouble.
Most of those which used to overrun these plains have been driven
away and must now be hunted in the woods; but there are plenty in the
forests between here and Uganda, and about the slopes of Mt. Kenya and
Mt. Kilimanjaro. There are also many in the south near the Zambezi, and
west of Lake Tanganyika, in the forests along the Congo. Some years ago
they were being killed off at such a rapid rate, and the ivory output
was decreasing so fast, that strict rules for their preservation were
inaugurated and are being enforced.
As for hippos and rhinos, there are plenty of them still left along the
streams and about the great lakes of the tropical parts of the continent.
There are rhinoceroses almost everywhere in the woods between Nairobi
and Uganda. I have seen a number of hippos, and were I a hunter, which
I am not, I could, I venture to say, bag enough of their hides to make
riding whips for all the hunt clubs of Virginia. The settlers tell me
the animals come in and root up their gardens, and that it is almost
impossible to fence against them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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