Sporting Scenes amongst the Kaffirs of South AfricaDrayson, Alfred W. (Alfred Wilks)
History
Sporting Scenes amongst the Kaffirs of South Africa
Drayson, Alfred W. (Alfred Wilks)
Hunting -- South Africa; South Africa -- Description and travel
After sitting patiently for upwards of an hour, and hearing nothing more
of the animals or even a sound of their presence, I gave up the idea of
waiting for them, and was making preparations for a descent, when I saw
the top branches of some small trees a few yards distant begin to shake
very violently. I cocked my gun, and was quite ready for a
bull-elephant, when I saw, to my great disappointment, that the
disturbance was caused by two or three little grey monkeys, that were
jumping about, and had evidently come to have a joke with me. They
looked up into our free with a very revere sort of critical expression;
made several faces and two or three short bows; scratched their sides
vigorously, and jumped from bough to bough until out of sight.
To show the attention that is sometimes paid to trifling matters in
bush-ranging, I will give another day's sport with Monyosi in the Berea.
We had gone in after elephants, and were on their spoor of the previous
night. There had been a great deal of listening and peeping, as the day
was so warm that we expected the elephants would be clustered together
in some shady glen, and would not move until we were right upon them.
As we were seated, listening, Monyosi suddenly looked up attentively at
a tree near us, and seemed to think that all was not as it should be. I
asked him what was wrong, when he said he did not know, but that a bird
had flown to a tree near us, stayed a little while, and had then gone
away. By the manner in which it had hopped about, he could see that it
was alarmed at something; and it would not have flown towards us, had
its flight been occasioned by our noise. I thought the cause a slight
one; but still, it is the dust, not the rock, that indicates the wind's
direction. Monyosi did not seem easy, but proposed that we should
proceed in the direction from whence the bird had approached us. We did
so, and after one hundred yards sat down to listen. Presently a very
slight crack of a branch or bit of stick caused our guns to be raised to
full cock, and we to peep about between the branches for a sight at
whatever it might be. The game was very cunning, and for full two
minutes there was not a move on either side; our patience, however, was
the greater, as we soon heard two or three light steps from the
suspicions quarter. I saw a smile on Monyosi's face; he uncocked his
gun, and gave a low whistle, which was responded to by another in the
bush a few yards distant. Soon after, a young English lad, born and
bred in the colony, and two Kaffirs, all three armed with guns, came
quietly up to us. I knew the boy, and he informed me that he was after
the elephants, but, hearing our approach, could not make us out; he
thought that he caught a glimpse of something rather red, which was
really my untanned leather breeches, and that he fancied it was a
red-buck; but the glance was so slight, that he could not be quite
certain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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