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
About two miles from camp we found the elephants; they had stopped, and
were standing round a clump of euphorbia. Making a detour to catch the
wind, I approached them, 4-bore in hand, and with one boy carrying the
.303 behind me. There was absolutely no cover, but, to my astonishment,
they took not the slightest notice of me. Gathering confidence from
this, I went quite close and inspected them. There were twenty-nine in
all, mostly cows, some of which, however, had enormously long, thin
tusks. Taking care to avoid any sudden movements which would be likely
to attract their attention, I passed to leeward of them, so close to
some that I could have touched them with my rifle. The three bulls were
at the far end, and I at length made up my mind which one to take. The
cartridge missed fire, and at the same moment the middle bull, which had
appeared small, lifted his head from behind a small euphorbia and showed
a pair of very massive tusks, almost black from use. Inwardly blessing
the miss-fire, I went up to within six yards of him, when the one I had
left caught a puff of my wind and cocked his ears; that was all he did;
he never made a sound of any description, yet the whole twenty-nine
(many of which had their backs turned, or were completely hidden by the
euphorbia) moved off instantly. As the black-tusked male swung round, I
gave him the first barrel on the shoulder, and again the second barrel
at nine yards; he dropped on to one knee, but never even lost his
stride; the others closed round him, and helped him away, and that was
the last I saw or heard of my first elephant. I was too weak to follow
far, and the next morning I sent out some of our boys with local
natives, but they never found him. When hunting elephant and other
game, the extraordinary ease with which they pass on the danger-signal
has often made me wonder whether they have another sense, which we, by
disuse, have practically lost. Perhaps even with us it survives in a
rudimentary form, causing the inexplicable phenomena of second sight,
mesmerism, etc., etc.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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