We studied their tracks: two bulls, it seemed. The signs of their fear and flight were printed deep in the dark forest mould, the reckless slithering hoofmarks, the snapped branches; some spattered, steaming dung. They had turned upwards. So on again, single file, toes thrust into muddy incline, the free hand grasping at branches and trailing creepers. The trees grew more scant at the summit. Then down again into the massed green – how often up and down now, I do not know. I do not even look for the spoor: all faculties are absorbed in the effort to force my body onward in spite of a bar straining across my chest. Merikabor points to the earth. Where before there were two tracks, there are now fifty – a hundred – we cannot count. The forest deepens until movement is almost impossible. Creepers as thin as silk or as thick as hawsers have woven the forest into a net: each step is an achievement. Merikabor stops again. Nothing can be seen in this tangle: nothing heard. He powders a dead leaf and lets it drift down through the air. But we are in a pit where wind eddies and that is our undoing. We have not stirred; nor have “they”. Yet, suddenly, a noise like a close, sudden clap of thunder! I cannot believe it is the herd. It must be a landslide. Surely only the elements could make a sound as if the whole forest, trees, boulders, tons of earth, were being flung at us. Then, as the first stunning effect of the noise passes, the sounds that make it up can be distinguished: the thudding of a hundred or more huge bodies rushing in all directions.
The main herd just missed us, but some rushed so close to me that the earth under my feet shuddered and the tree to which I was clinging seemed to sway. A few yards nearer and our three guns would have been useless, we should have been down. Almost more strange than the noise was the speed of its ceasing. Did heavy foliage stifle the thunder, or do the animals after the first plunging frenzy of alarm regain their cunning and move their bulky bodies like shadows through the trees? We stiffen again. They are coming back. I wrap myself round the nearest tree. This is no time for shooting. Half a dozen break past us. They are only a few yards away, yet so shrouded by the forest that I see little more than their broad, blue-grey flanks in the convulsion of their gallop. We relax. We have to relax. The South African lights a cigarette and as we see the almost circular drift of its smoke we see again what betrayed us. I dare to speak. “Surely it is hopeless. They must now be startled and alert beyond all catching.” Merikabor does not agree. He is impatient to go on. Only a few yards away we find the marks of the main stampede: a ruin of trees, the forest moss and mould pounded into mud. On again – and up. We follow not a track but a road of hoofmarks. They divide, join, divide again. Merikabor never doubts which to follow.
At last the hunters come up with the herd: “green-black forest, blue-black animals, dim under the first veil of twilight. Margery Perham, inching her way forward, makes out the shape of a bull and fires.
“Did I hit him?” I asked in my pidgin-Swahili.
“Yes,” he said. Of course I had! The picture that in some strange way had been driven out of my head by the rush re-formed itself in my mind: the bull falling and rising and going on again. I was so glad that I could have shouted and sung. The policeman came running back. Formality had gone. “Old thing, you got him!” he shouted and wrung both my hands.
We joined Merikabor, who was following the blood spoor. He showed me the light red blood of the external entry of the bullet in the thigh and, further on, the dark clotted blood from the internal wound. My bullet must have raked him through from back to front. They were quite sure he would die, if not tonight, tomorrow. They would get him. Meanwhile, it was madness to pursue. The dark was coming on….
I do not think that I have ever been so exhausted in my life or ever shall be again as I was the night after the hunt. Yet I did not sleep. My heart seemed to continue its excessive beat. But it was not that which kept me awake. I hated myself for what I had done. Why had I killed that bull? Why had I ever wanted to do it? Was it a kind of vanity? To prove myself to other people? That was there, perhaps, but it was not the main motive. That was a desire to prove myself to myself. I knew then that never, never, as long as I lived would I again kill for “sport”. Of course, for the time, I had to continue playing my part to the last act. After all, these others had done all they could to help me….
Their lives were risked again, for next day they found my bull by its blood trail. It was dead. This time some of the herd charged them and they had to shoot three of them in self-defence. Even so, Merikabor would have been killed by a cow which charged from the side if she had not caught her horns in a branch. They sent after me to say that they had prepared the head so that it could be sent to England for mounting. I had to disappoint them by a grateful but definite and, to them, inexplicable, refusal.
East African Journey Margery Perham.
Ernest Hemingway, on safari in the 1930s, set out in pursuit of the last trophy, a greater kudu. M’Cola “the Roman” was his gunbearer, an African so called because he had a prominent nose.
It was after five when we struck off across the maize field and down to the stream, crossing where it narrowed in a high grass a hundred yards above the dam and then, walking slowly and carefully, went up the grassy bank on the far side, getting soaked to the waist as we stooped going through the wet grass and bracken. We had not been gone ten minutes and were moving carefully up the stream bank, when, without warning, the Roman grabbed my arm and pulled me bodily down to the ground as he crouched; me pulling back the bolt to cock the rifle as I dropped. Holding his breath he pointed and across the stream on the far bank at the edge of the trees was a large, grey animal, white stripes showing on his flanks and huge horns curling back from his head as he stood, broadside to us, head up, seeming to be listening. I raised the rifle, but there was a bush in the way of the shot. I could not shoot over the bush without standing.
“Piga,” whispered M’Cola. I shook my finger and commenced to crawl forward to be clear of the bush, sick afraid the bull would jump while I was trying to make the shot certain, but remembering Pop’s “Take your time”. When I saw I was clear I got on one knee, saw the bull through the aperture, marvelling at how big he looked, and then, remembering not to have it matter, that it was the same as any other shot, I saw the bead centred exactly where it should be just below the top of the shoulder and squeezed off. At the roar he jumped and was going into the brush, but I knew I had hit him. I shot at a show of grey between the trees as he went in and M’Cola was shouting, “Piga! Piga!” meaning “He’s hit! He’s hit!” and the Roman was slapping me on the shoulder, then he had his toga up around his neck and was running naked, and the four of us were running now, full speed, like hounds, splashing across the stream, tearing up the bank, the Roman ahead, crashing naked through the brush, then stooping and holding up a leaf with bright blood, slamming me on the back, M’Cola saying, “Damu! Damu!” (blood, blood), then the deep cut tracks off to the right, me reloading, we all trailing in a dead run, it almost dark in the timber, the Roman, confused a moment by the trail, making a cast off to the right, then picking up blood once more, then pulling me down again with a jerk on my arm and none of us breathing as we saw him standing in a clearing a hundred yards ahead, looking to me hard-hit and looking back, wide ears spread, big, grey, white-striped, his horns a marvel, as he looked straight toward us over his shoulder. I thought I must make absolutely sure this time, now, with the dark coming and I held my breath and shot him a touch behind the fore-shoulder. We heard the bullet smack and saw him buck heavily with the shot. M’Cola shouted, “Piga! Piga! Piga!” as he went out of sight and as we ran again, like hounds, we almost fell over something. It was a huge, beautiful kudu bull, stone-dead, on his side, his horns in great dark spirals, wide-spread and unbelievable as he lay dead five yards from where we stood when I had just that instant shot. I looked at him, big, long-legged, a smooth grey with the white stripes and the great curling, sweeping horns, brown as walnut meats, and ivory pointed, at the big ears and the great, lovely heavy-maned neck, the white chevron b
etween his eyes and the white of his muzzle and I stooped over and touched him to try to believe it. He was lying on the side where the bullet had gone in and there was not a mark on him and he smelled sweet and lovely like the breath of cattle and the odour of thyme after rain.
Then the Roman had his arms around my neck and M’Cola was shouting in a strange high sing-song voice and Wanderobo-Masai kept slapping me on the shoulder and jumping up and down and then one after the other they all shook hands in a strange way that I had never known in which they took your thumb in their fist and held it and shook it and pulled it and held it again, while they looked you in the eyes, fiercely.
We all looked at him and M’Cola knelt and traced the curve of his horns with his finger and measured the spread with his arms and kept crooning, “Oo-oo-eee-eee”, making small high noises of ecstasy and stroking the kudu’s muzzle and his mane.
I slapped the Roman on the back and we went through the thumb-pulling again; me pulling his thumb too. I embraced the Wanderobo-Masai and he, after a thumb-pulling of great intensity and feeling, slapped his chest and said very proudly, “Wanderobo-Masai” – “wonderful guide”.
Green Hills of Africa Ernest Hemingway.
A bongo hunt in the forests of the Aberdares (Nyandarua).
It was the morning of the last day I ever had. My little bivouac tent was pitched at the edge of a small glade at an elevation of between nine and ten thousand feet. I had with me old Kiriboto, my gunbearer, a cook and the two Dorobos (they never came except in pairs). I rose at five o’clock, having listened for an hour to the hyrax calling in the trees, the intermittent “sawing” of a leopard, and other forest sounds, well knowing that though the Dorobo would surely be awake nothing would induce them to call me, and that nothing but the dawn would rouse Kiriboto. At 5.20 we were under way, the two little guides in front, a short spear in the hand of each, naked save for a goatskin over the shoulder.
The moon was still high and easily overpowered the first faint glow of the “false” dawn. We all felt the cold as we plunged into the long and soaking grass of the glade towards the farther bank of the encircling forest. Just as we got there we heard a bushbuck bark, while a big dark owl circling round uttered a querulous hoot. Arrived at the edge of the forest, our guides gave a glance round, hitched their goatskins tighter round their shoulders and then melted silently into the solid green wall. There was no melting about Kiriboto or myself. Brambles tore at us, malignant branches whipped our faces, twigs cracked, and streams of icy-cold water trickled down our necks. For twenty yards we struggled on and then the undergrowth cleared and we found the Dorobo reproachfully waiting, and once again off they stole up the hill. It was still dark, but the great boles of trees could by now be seen dimly rising from clumps of undergrowth somewhat like laurestinus.
There were game tracks about and now and again some animal plunged off through the thicket, but our guides paid no attention, and glided along the game tracks always upwards at a pace which had us panting. After a stiff ascent I was forced to rest for a minute. When I looked up the little figures had vanished into thin air. I remember that the first time this had happened Kiriboto and I were seriously alarmed, since we well knew that without their aid it might be a couple of days before we found our way out and back to our camp. This time I merely sat down with a sigh of relief. In five minutes, like Cheshire cats, they simply materialized, their mouths smeared with honey, and off we set upwards again and in a few minutes plunged through another thicket into another glade….
On and up again, and now we came to a swiftly running stream through which we waded. It was waist-deep and icy cold, but I was already dripping with sweat and it was a pleasant interlude. The character of the forest now began to change. The trees were further apart and more lichen clung to the boughs. The laurestinus had disappeared and its place was taken by small clumps of low bamboo. Out of one such clump there burst as we passed a huge dark animal, looking as big as a young rhino. It was a giant forest boar weighing perhaps 700 lb. Their tracks were numerous hereabouts. But time was slipping on and we saw here and there patches of the low vegetation that the bongo loves. Tracks and droppings were, too, apparent, and every now and then a Dorobo would pick up a handful of the latter and sniff it with the air of a connoisseur. Next, by a gesture, they made us stop while they made a wide cast, moving with silent and effortless speed. In ten minutes they returned and the leader thrust into my reluctant hand a lump of dung still warm and they beckoned us forward, a finger to lips.
In a few minutes we came on the tracks quite fresh but not, as I had hoped to see, of a solitary bull but of a herd of at least half a dozen, including, however, one, if not two, bulls. After them we proceeded at a pace which seemed to me much too fast but to our guides much too slow. And they were right. It was now eight o’clock and the tracks moved upwards and the bamboo clumps grew closer together and were now in places twenty feet or more in height. Now and again we had to crawl, and once the muffled cracking of a twig earned for me an angry scowl. I had almost reconciled myself to another long day of bamboo crawling. Suddenly the leader froze in his stride and distinctly we heard a crackle not more than 300 yards away. Care was redoubled now and every step brought an agony of apprehension. Luckily noise was all we had to fear; not a breath of wind stirred in the forest.
About 100 yards we advanced, hearing now and again the tell-tale crackle ever louder. Then the elder Dorobo went down on hands and knees and touched my rifle, and leaving the other two we crawled forward, 10, 20, 50 yards to where a fallen tree-trunk lay. After a cautious peep he silently pointed, and there, dimly among some sparse bamboos, I made out the form of a large beast which from its dark colour I took to be a bull. Now the distance was, I estimated, about 120 yards, the light was bad, and another fallen tree some thirty yards nearer and perhaps ten feet below me interfered with my view. I refused the shot, most reluctantly, and halting the Dorobo, crawled round my log and down towards the next.
The distance seemed quite interminable, but I got there without a sound, and now I could see my quarry plainly. Somehow it seemed a richer red and I had less confidence about its sex, though its horns looked good as it cropped the herbage. Anyhow I had no choice, so squeezed the trigger and down it went. I looked back at Kiriboto and the others, expecting to see them rushing forward, but instead I saw them pointing below me. I was squatting on my haunches and though I peered in the direction saw nothing, though I heard crashes all around me. At that moment the beast I had shot struggled to its feet and I had to give the second barrel of my .360. Then up came Kiriboto and explained that a huge bull, of course the biggest ever, had at the shot crossed my front at quite close range. Sure enough there were the tracks, huge in the soft earth, in a cutting of ground dead to me, but plainly visible from my first halt. It was, and is, for no time can soothe this, maddening to think that had I taken the first chance, I must, even if I had missed it, have got this splendid bull, passing a bare fifty yards from me, with my second barrel.
My beast, as will be guessed, was a very ancient cow with two-foot horns. It took the Dorobos, working with most inadequate tools, but a few minutes to remove the head and body skin. The carcase they then dismembered, eating greedily the while raw, warm delicacies from the entrails. They then bound the varied sections with creepers, and moving like monkeys, attached them to boughs forty feet up, and safe from even the most agile leopard. We were back at camp by two o’clock, and so ended the shortest, most successful and most disappointing of my bongo hunts.
Kenya Chronicles Lord Cranworth.
The rhythm of Africa.
We would often go out hunting porcupine. After supper we would collect a number of boys, let out the dogs, and with spears in our hands make our way towards the potato patch. Porcupine used to do an astounding amount of damage to these vegetables. They would work right through the rows, unburying the roots. They came from great distances for the satisfaction of doing this. We sometimes hunted them back to holes in a roc
ky hill-side several miles away. They had a kind of small rattle of quills on the ends of their tails, and when once we had started one of them out of the potatoes it would make a most infernal jingling with this instrument as it trundled along over the veld. Hunting porcupine requires no little skill. They have a trick of dashing off at top speed and then, at the most exciting moment of the hunt, stopping dead still and rushing backwards, reversing gear, so to speak, to the utter confusion of their pursuers, who, unless very alert, find themselves in collision with a curious battering-ram of sharp spikes.
Most of the dogs, from bitter experience, gave chase to these animals in a very wary and diffident way, keeping always at a safe distance. Micky we never took with us on these occasions, because we knew that nothing would keep him back when once his blood was up. The rest of the pack knew just what to do. They would run the porcupine until it was out of breath and then bay it up till we and the boys appeared. We used to have some exciting moments even then. The light shed by our lantern was never sufficient, and the fretful animal would charge backwards and forwards in all directions, its tail keeping up a continuous jangling like a bunch of keys at an old woman’s apron. I have known the leg of a boy to be speared right through by a porcupine. When the animal was dead we used to pull out the best quills, and my brother would send them home, wrapped up in The East African Standard, to be used as pen-holders. The carcass we would leave where it was, that extraordinary carcass, with its strong legs and black rabbit-like face. If we happened to pass by the place during the next few days the air to windward would be villainously tainted, but this would not last long; very soon the carrion birds, the hyenas, the jackals, the rats, the ants, would clear it all up, so that, except for a little heap of black-and-white quills, nothing would remain of the odd bulky animal which possessed so keen a relish for the imported American root and knew how to find its way about over the veld on the darkest night. Kill! Kill! Kill! that was what one had to do to keep in tune with the African rhythm, with that inexorable rhythm, the sublimest cadence of which is only to be heard when backbones are being snapped and throats cut.
Nine Faces Of Kenya Page 46