From the Cape to Cairo: The First Traverse of Africa from South to NorthGrogan, Ewart Scott
History
From the Cape to Cairo: The First Traverse of Africa from South to North
Grogan, Ewart Scott
Africa -- Description and travel; Grogan, Ewart Scott, 1874-1967
exhausting the magazine, and then dashed off in pursuit, passing one
which had dropped about five hundred yards off, and reached an ant-hill
from which I could see number three evidently very sick. I dropped him
with a forehead shot, but he recovered, and eventually reached the
forest carrying another ten bullets. Here I followed again, but it was
impossible to keep his spoor owing to the perfect maze of tracks, and
after wandering around for some time, I climbed up an ant-hill with a
large funnel down the middle. From this elevation I saw him standing
not more than fifteen yards away. I fired the 10-bore, which staggered
him, and knocked me down the funnel, but I scrambled out again just in
time to give him the second barrel, which brought him down at the same
time that I once more retired into my Stygian retreat; a 3 in. ridge of
crumbling earth 15 ft. from the ground is not the most advisable basis
from which to fire a 10-bore paradox. All these elephant were of the
same type, huge solid beasts with shortish, thick tusks; 6 ft. 10 in., 7
ft. 3 in., 5 ft. 6 in., 5 ft. 6 in., 6 ft. 4 in., 6 ft. 5 in., and
weighing 76 lbs., 78 lbs., 56 lbs., 56 lbs., 60 lbs., and 61 lbs.
respectively.
The next day I found the fourth that I had hit very hard. He had fallen
within two hundred yards of the other two, but owing to the long grass I
had not seen him. His tusks weighed 49 lbs., and measured 6 ft. and 5
ft. 10 in., making a total of 633 lbs. for the day.
Between Boki and Munyagora there is a ten-mile stretch of inhospitable
scrub covered with a species of acacia, with huge white thorns springing
in pairs from hard bulbous excrescences. Formerly there was a
settlement named Mjamori about half way, but the chief Akem has fled
with his people to Munyagora; he told me that he had fled from the
Belgians. I here made the discovery that "Billygee" is a generic term
for the Congo officials, and not, as I had previously imagined, the name
of an individual. From Munyagora to Igara, which lies at the bend of
the river, the country is thickly populated. The Lures build very
primitive shelters and surround each village with a scherm of
thorn-tree; they do not appear to cultivate the soil, but breed large
numbers of goats, which look very sleek and comely. The country, which
is very barren and parched, is admirably adapted to that abominable
quadruped, which is never so happy as when confined to a little sand and
the rancid smell of its own kind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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