South and South Central Africa: A record of fifteen years' missionary labors among primitive peoplesDavidson, Hannah Frances
History
South and South Central Africa: A record of fifteen years' missionary labors among primitive peoples
Davidson, Hannah Frances
Brethren in Christ Church -- Missions; Missions -- Rhodesia; Ndebele (African people); Tsonga (African people)
I went forward with him and found a huge elephant lying beside the
train. Its two hind feet were crushed, as the engine, tender, and
service car had passed over them; otherwise it was unhurt, and at times
made violent efforts to stand upon its front feet. At such times the
crowd of people would suddenly take flight, to be out of harm's way, and
a box-car near by was in danger of being demolished. No one on the train
was supplied with a large rifle, suitable for elephant hunting, but
small ones kept up a lively fire, until perhaps three dozen were emptied
into the huge bulk before it succumbed.
The engine had been derailed by the violence of the shock, and it would
require some time before we could proceed. Judging from the spoor it was
evident that the elephant was one of those large ones that roam the
forests alone, and it had run quite a distance on the track before the
engine struck it. It was an immense animal, and the large ears resembled
a cape lying back over the shoulders.
There were a number of natives on the train, who were going down to work
in the mines about Bulawayo, and they wished to begin at once on the
feast of meat before them, but the authorities thought it best to put
them at working the large jacks used in moving the engine back on the
rails. All night long bright fires of logs were kept burning to light
up the scene and work. The engine finally was in place, and the natives
eagerly hastened to cut out large pieces of elephant meat and to roast
it over the great beds of coal left from the campfires of the night.
Soon, however, the train began to move, just twelve hours from the time
of stopping, and the natives, with their raw or half-cooked meat,
hastened to enter their car, and we moved on, having had a share in one
of the most exciting railroad trips of the season. The tusks of this
elephant finally found their way into the Bulawayo Museum.
[Illustration: The Elephant That Derailed the Train.]
The tusks of the African elephant often are quite large and heavy. I
once saw in a European home three pairs of tusks from elephants lately
killed by a young farmer. Of one pair of tusks each was five feet long,
eighteen inches in diameter; one weighed one hundred pounds and the
other five pounds less. We are informed, however, that some have tusks
still much larger than these.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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