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Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell, better known by his nickname ”Karamojo” Bell, appears to have been the most successful elephant hunter ever. Shooting more than a thousand elephant between 1897 and 1922. While researching articles on his hunting career. (source "Game & Hunt) He wrote something interesting about the shooting/caliber and attacks from Buffalo and elephant. This is taken from two letters from Karamojo Bell to his friend William Garrood. He wrote: I am now known as the man who has shot more than a thousand Elephant and slightly fewer buffalo. Actually the figure is less than that: 983 Bull elephant, and 28 cows shot for meat or self-defence, which makes a total of 1011 elephants in all. Regarding African Buffalo, I must have shot between 600 and 700, mostly for food. I have dug out all my stats, as a fellow called Barclay has been pestering me for them. He wants to bring out a book on big –game shooting records sometime. But let me get to the point. If you read my book carefully (The wanderings of an elephant hunter) you will find there are two points that I am a bit vague on. The one is why , unlike most hunters, I stopped using big-calibers rifles, and the second is how I managed to kill nearly 700 buffalo without once being charged. I am going to explain these points to you, my old and trusted friend, so you can understand my book and me better. I could not bring myself to put the material into the book, as people will not believe what I have written, but I have to explain it to someone. Hence these two letters to you. This, the first, deals with a very strange experience I had with two elephant in thick forrest near Mount Elgon when finishing my first safari. After this , I never used my my double-barrelled 450/400 Nitro Express to hunt elephant with again. The second letter enlarges on what I meant when I said in my book that I believe that buffalo can be very nasty when in thick stuff with a flesh wound, as someone is going to wonder if I ever met a wounded buffalo. But let us now get back to the last time I ever seriously used a big-caliber rifle to hunt elephant with, as my conversion to the 275 and the 256 date from this time. I had been following a small herd of elephant when they disappeared into a small but very thickly forested area near Mount Elgon, very close to where I had begun the safari in Karamojo, Uganda. They had gone through the Turkwell River and stopped to take a mud bath shortly before I found them. At the time, I was experimenting with the double-barelled 450 by wiring both its triggers together, so that when I pulled the tear one, booth barrels went off together. I was not very keen on this arrangement as, besides the heavy recoil, the results it produced were no better than with the 275 and the 256. I had resolved to give the 450double one last try when I saw the elephants tracks heading away from their mud bath. As you know, an elephant travels more quickly than it appears to. Six miles an hour might not seem much of a speed for an elephant, but when you are following them on foot, and carrying a heavy rifle, it is amazing how far you can end up walking in following them. As I often told you, I reckon I had to walk more than fifty miles on average for each elephant I killed, and I wore out two pairs of boot each month with all this. My native assistants worked on basis of one month on, one month off. That is , except for one, Shundi, who stuck it out for ten months, and then retired. But I am wandering away from my point. You may imagine my relief when I found the elephants had entered the tick forest near Mount Elgon, after following them for three hours . I had been walking through an area with many thorn trees, and it was possible to see where the elephants had gone by large amount of mud that had rubbed of them onto the trees as they passed. At the time, I thought this an advantage, as it made the elephants easy to follow. Little did I realize what the drying mud the passing elephants had left on the trees was to do to me, At each step trough these trees, a fine shower of dust and grit rained down onto me – and onto the open breech of the unloaded, heavy rifle I was carrying. As I entered the cool forrest, I decided that they could not that far away, even tough I could neither hear nor see them. I loaded my weapon, placing two cartridges in it but keeping the breech open for safety, resolving to close it only when closer to the elephant. You can imagine my surprise when I suddenly saw the rear of a bull elephant move in front of me, only twenty yards away. In the gloom, I had mistaken him for a section of forest, and only seen him when he moved. It is uncanny how such a big animal can move so soundlessly in the forest. His cushioned feet make no sound, and the only noise indicating an elephant is nearby is the swish of the bush as it closes behind him. I tried to close the rifle: and found I could not. I later found that any sand, grit or vegetation that fell onto the open breech made it impossible to close it. There I was , with an elephant standing close by , and me unable to use my rifle! I might as well have had a large stick for all the good it did me. Little did I know my situation was about to get worse. I heard a swish to my rear and turning, I saw another large bull , standing about the same distance behind me! He was just looking at me, curius, without any aggression. What could I do but freeze, and silently curse my useless weapon. After what seemed an eternity, I heard the faint noise of voices behind me. It was two of my assistants, one carrying a spare rifle and the other water bottle. Normally, I would have cursed them for talking but that day I could have kissed them. When I looked again, the elephants had gone, having disappeared with utter silence into the bush. Since that yime, I have never used the 450 again, and now you know the reason why. In my next letter, I will explain an even stranger experience I had with Buffalo: Why I was only “charged” once in all my buffalo hunts Regards Your old friend | ||
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His nickname was Karamojo not Aramojo! | |||
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Sorry, The K key did not work | |||
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It didn't work in the thread title either! | |||
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Sounds like Bell should have done what most of us do and that is to load our doubles when we take up the trail. Had he been carrying his bolt rifle with the action open it might not have closed when he wanted it to either. That problem wasn't a fault of the double rifle but of the user. 465H&H | |||
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Agree 100%. | |||
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Remember that Mr Bell was a british and they carrying the shotgun and also the double rifle open in the albow untill they gonna shot. | |||
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But this instance occured at the end of his first safari. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Give me the simple life; an AK-47, a good guard dog and a nymphomaniac who owns a liquor store. | |||
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And when he mentions his aversion to recoil it makes some wonder how much of it he brought on himself...
And then he complains of the grit in the action??? Really??? That bell was an exceptional shot, there seems to be no doubt, even his contemperaries commented on the fact. However his opinions on guns and calibres seems to have been be formed in much the same way it is too often done in modern times: Capriciously blaming the gun for his own mistakes... . | |||
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I could hardly believe what I was reading there. "wiring both triggers together so both barrels fired when the rear trigger was pulled." Walking with your action open in elephant country with dirt showering you and your open action. No DUHH!!~! Sound like the musings of a rank and naive beginner. In fact it's changed my whole opinion of Mr. Bell in it's entirety. A fine shot no doubt a fit hunter no doubt and an ignorant neophyte whom based his future rifle choices on pure unadulterated stupidity no doubt. Taylor described Mr. Bell and his success at not getting killed during his small bore reign with one very correct word. "Lucky." | |||
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Very interesting. Let's not forget that this experience occurred during Bell's first safari. There were few, if any, reliable books (and no videos!) in those days regarding the "right" ways and weapons for pursuit of elephant, and men like Bell had to learn their lessons first hand and on the fly. But from this odd mishap, Bell does seem to have drawn the wrong conclusion. Thanks for posting this, Hallgeir. Mike Wilderness is my cathedral, and hunting is my prayer. | |||
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Fellows like Bell had to go the hard way, and learning the hard way. | |||
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So does any one know where the second letter about buffalo is and have a copy? SSR | |||
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Also, there were not all the internet experts around to tell Bell what an idiot he was and how much he did to give hunting a blackeye????? Since safari travel or just getting around in Africa period during Bell's time there was so great, it would be interesting to find out how many thousand elephants he would have killed if he had only used the right gun and properly at that. Dumb ass Scotsman. Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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It`s a Source you can try it`S: EG JAnsen Africana Collection National Cultural History Museum (NFI, Pretoria) | |||
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Not so. There were many books written about the "'right' ways and weapons for pursuit of elephant". One, for example, was the very popular and well read Wild Beasts and Their Ways (excerpt below).
Bell was a bit of a rebel in his choice of weapons. He began his African career with a second-hand Fraser .303 single shot rifle he purchased in England. He was hired to accompany a mule convoy, providing protection and procuring meat. The rifle had difficulty extracting, "In the cool of the night the .303 extracted reasonably well, especially if a tree trunk were handy on which to thump the lever." He was also advised that it would be too small to use on lion without initiating a charge. He exchanged the .303 for a "Winchester single shot black powder .450 falling block with a long, taper cartridge". Unfortunately, all the cartridges he had for the .450 were loaded with "that abomination, the hollow copper-point bullet". His .450 proved inadequate because the bullets were breaking up in the game he shot. His next acquisition was a .303 Lee-Metford, the latest army rifle. He said, "It used a nickel-jacketed bullet weighing two hundred and fifteen grains and, although soft-nosed bullets were being made for it, I would have none of them." It was with that rifle that he began his "life-long study in nerve control and the knowledge of anatomy". . | |||
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Hi Grenadier Do you have access to the book "The Wanderings of an elephant hunter" written by Mr Bell, this letter is telling his friend Wiliam Garrood in France about this book... Thanks | |||
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Yes, I have the book. But the best explanation of what is discussed is found in Bell of Africa, a book he wrote later. Bell's explanation and the language he used in the letter are the same as his discussion and language used in the first chapter, EARLY DAYS, in Bell of Africa. . | |||
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What you apparently view as many, I think of as few. Certainly many fewer were available in 1897 than just a few decades later, and vastly fewer were available then than we have now. Mike Wilderness is my cathedral, and hunting is my prayer. | |||
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Yes, there have been many, many books on the subject since the mid-1900s, but by then the days of the Ivory Hunter were over and very few hunters who wrote about their experiences could write with the same authority as someone who had spent years living and working in the pursuit of free roaming elephants. By your signature line I would suppose that you would agree:
I have absolutely no experience hunting elephants. I would guess that the Bodingtons, Taylors, and Hathaways have/had ounces of experience. Men like Bell, Baker, and White had pounds of experience. . | |||
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I am thinking of the canonical elephant hunting books by Blunt, Stigand, Sutherland, Taylor (as to rifles) and, of course, Bell himself, all of which (except Taylor's) were written during the first two or three decades of the twentieth century. Mike Wilderness is my cathedral, and hunting is my prayer. | |||
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There may be more 19th century books written about, or with information about, elephant hunting then you are aware of. The large game and natural history of South and South-East Africa from the journals of W.H. Drummond was published in Edinburgh by Edmonston and Douglas in 1875. It would have been one of several books available to Bell.
The writings of Arthur Neumann might have also been digested by Bell and may have influenced his choice of weapons. I have not read anything of Neumann's but I did find an interesting modern day review.
Of course we shouldn't overlook the famous works of Frederick Courteney Selous - A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa (1881) and Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa (1893) though he only bagged 106 elephants, a trifle to be sure. . | |||
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Thanks a lot Very interessting reading, keep up the good work; I`m doing a lot of research to get hold of the second letter from Mr Bell | |||
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Never wound a buffalo “I was so glad to hear that my book has reached you safely – and that you have completed the building alterations your wife wanted for the restaurant. Thank you so much for your invitation to visit when I next come to France.“My publisher has repeatedly suggested I should visit Europe to promote my book, and give some lectures on the hunting techniques I have developed. I should arrive in France early next spring, and will contact you closer to the time for a suitable date.“But what I really appreciate are your comments on my experience with the elephants in my last letter. I see you understand why I could not put that in my book, as nobody would have believed it. “Neither would anyone believe that I have never once been charged by a buffalo, even though I have managed to kill nearly 700 buffalo over the years. Most of the so-called charges are actually a panic-stricken rush for the sound of the rifle, and are not actually charges at all. “My recipe for success there was simple: Never wound a buffalo animal, but always kill it outright. Then you will never be in the very dangerous position of having to follow a wounded buffalo. Or, you can choose not to shoot the animal: not very easy when you are facing an infuriated buffalo only a few feet away. I made this choice – once, by accident. “Let me start my story at the beginning. It was the year 1909 and I was hunting in the Lado. Leopold II, King of the Belgians had just died, and, according to a treaty signed in 1884, this part of land, which adjoined the Belgian Congo, had to be returned to the Sudan six months after his death. Leopold had used it as his personal hunting grounds, and what hunting grounds it was: quite literally fit for a king. “I had just gone out on the trail of elephant, armed with a .256 Mannlicher Schoenauer rifle, one of the lightest and most beautiful weapons I have ever handled. Until that fateful day, I had extraordinary luck when using that rifle. Until that day. “I was not expecting to meet buffalo, as the area where I was walking, a swamp on the banks of the River Nile was crowded with elephant. Actually, that was putting it mildly. All the elephant for 100 miles inland were crowded into the swamps … “I am not exaggerating when I say the reeds were about thirteen feet high. About the only way I could shoot anything was by standing on a tripod … The other alternative, standing on the shoulders of one of my assistants, makes for decidedly difficult aiming. “Yet another alternative was to stand on top of a dead elephant. I was actually walking towards an elephant I had shot earlier that day, intending to do just that, when I heard a snorting noise some distance away. “Thinking it might be a white rhino – as I had encountered two that same morning – I raised my rifle. At first, there was no sound at all, only the rustling of the reeds in the light breeze that had just sprung up. And then came the sound of heavy breathing. It could not have been more than ten yards away, yet nothing was visible. “Buffalo! I felt the hairs on the back of my neck raised, as I had constantly read of how buffalo, especially wounded ones, would attack without warning. It is difficult to remember exactly what happened next. All I can remember was that I was terrified, and everything seemed to happen in slow motion. “There was a sudden snort and a crashing noise as the reeds parted to my right. As I turned, I fired into the parting. The dark black head of a buffalo was now visible not three yards away. I swung the little rifle until it was pointing at exactly the right spot, just above the buffalo’s red eyes. I was about to do what I had done so many times with buffalo: fire four or even five shots in rapid succession, sometimes killing four animals in as many seconds. “You see, I had trained myself to fire almost as quickly as a machine gun, by using both hands at once, extracting the cartridge and then reloading in one rapid movement. One old Sikh said the movements my hands made when doing this reminded him of a cobra striking. I had learned to push the rifle forward with my left hand, while pulling back the bolt with my right hand to extract the empty cartridge just fired, and then pulling the rifle back with my left hand while pushing the bolt forward with my right, loading the next round into the chamber and closing the chamber for firing a fraction of a second later. “I pressed the trigger, and: nothing, except a click. I immediately realized what I had done: I had reloaded the empty cartridge instead of a new one. Because I had been working so quickly, I had not pulled the empty cartridge back far enough to extract it. “I thought this could only happen with a much longer cartridge, where long bolt movements are needed. Opening the bolt again, I saw the empty case. I also saw the buffalo standing very still. I could feel his hot breath and the angry snorting of his breathing. I could also see that, somehow, incredibly, I had missed him completely with my first shot. “What now? Reloading was my only option, but suppose the buffalo fled towards the sound: right at me? I can still see the shiny empty cartridge flying through the air to my right as I reloaded. To this day I don’t know exactly what happened next. “I remember falling to my right as the buffalo raced past me, to my left. I pointed the gun at his shoulder, as I had done so many times, and pulled the trigger: only, again, to hear nothing but a click as the cartridge failed to fire. “Back at camp, I found that the Austrian ammunition I was using was defective. In this particular batch, some split at the neck of the cartridge when fired, and others simply refused to fire at all. “Thinking about what had just happened, I broke into a cold sweat: suppose I hadn’t missed the buffalo? I could easily have been killed when the ammunition failed to fire. I had been very lucky not to have wounded the buffalo, only frightened him. I read that Selous once had a very similar experience. “After that, I stopped using the beautiful little .256 and went back to my trusty 7 mm Mauser. Using German (that is DWM) ammunition, I never had a problem. “And I was never charged by a buffalo after this, because, quite simply, they never got the chance to charge me: I made very sure to kill them first, and used only the Mauser with DWM ammunition. So, strictly speaking, I have never been charged by a buffalo, despite killing some 700 of these animals. But do you think any hunter would believe me when I say this? | |||
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Good Stuff! Thanks for sharing! I hunt to live and live to hunt! | |||
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Entirely possible, although I have read Baker and Neumann, and Foa and Kittenberger, for that matter, as well as Selous and others, including Finaughty. Neumann, Foa and Kittenberger were contemporaries, rather than predecessors, of Bell. I find them interesting for their hunting tales, rather than any particular ecological, anatomical or ballistic insights regarding elephants and elephant hunting. Bell actually improved the usefulness of the genre with his first book - although there's a running and apparently never ending debate about the wisdom of his small bore advocacy and even the accuracy of some of his shot placement drawings. The old-timers, like Baker, Finaughty and Selous, are likewise interesting for their tales, but I enjoy reading them also because they and their hunting exploits spanned the black powder and smokeless powder eras both. One can readily appreciate how small bore enthusiasts, like Bell, were converted to the use of what we now consider inadequate weapons on elephant and other dangerous game. They were greatly impressed by the remarkable (for the time) penetrating ability of small, but long for caliber, high velocity, metal jacketed bullets, and the comparatively light recoil of the magazine rifles that fired them. Compared with the enormous bore rifles, with ther two or three ounce bullets and buckets of filthy, smoky black powder, the small bore cordite rifles were a welcome and pretty effective change. And they also kicked far less than the .450 and up cordite rifles, too. History shows us that the use of small bores on DG was rather a short-lived fad, though. Even when at its height, the practice had serious doubters and detractors. Now, of course, it is not popular at all, and more to the point, generally illegal. Thanks for posting the other letter, Hallgeir. Very interesting. Bell's luck was apparently very real! Mike Wilderness is my cathedral, and hunting is my prayer. | |||
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Isn't that almost word for word what Saeed says?  SSR | |||
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Thought you might enjoy this. Tanzania Mike  | |||
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Nice, and special You guys are genuin Africa hunters | |||
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Luck alone would last only the first few dozen elephants, not 1011. Good thing Mr. Bell isn't a member here since he doesn't seem to hunt elephants 'correctly'.  Hunting: Exercising dominion over creation at 2800 fps. | |||
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"I don't know what there is about buffalo that frightens me so. Lions and leopards and rhinos excite me but don't frighten me. But that buff is so big and mean and ugly and hard to stop, and vindictive and cruel and surly and ornery. He looks like he hates you personally. He looks like you owe him money. He looks like he is hunting you...He makes me sick in the stomach, and he makes my hands sweat, and he dries out my throat and my lips." Robert Ruark, Horn of the Hunter, 1953 – med | |||
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..."touche"... | |||
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A little luck can go a long way when you combine it with great skill... Mark Sullivan has never been gored, stomped, or clawed. People have looked askance at his methods, but no one has ever said that he isn't a very good shot. . | |||
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[QUOTE] “Neither would anyone believe that I have never once been charged by a buffalo, even though I have managed to kill nearly 700 buffalo over the years. Most of the so-called charges are actually a panic-stricken rush for the sound of the rifle, and are not actually charges at all..." Thanks for the humble sobering truth - and destroying the illusion planted in many readers minds by those with the desire to gain mileage by embellishing their accounts of hunting. ...I swung the little rifle until it was pointing at exactly the right spot, just above the buffalo’s red eyes. I was about to do what I had done so many times with buffalo: fire four or even five shots in rapid succession, sometimes killing four animals in as many seconds... As Duckear said, luck will only get you so far, the rest is competence and skill. ...I immediately realized what I had done: I had reloaded the empty cartridge instead of a new one. Because I had been working so quickly, I had not pulled the empty cartridge back far enough to extract it. “I thought this could only happen with a much longer cartridge, where long bolt movements are needed. Opening the bolt again, I saw the empty case.... goes to show that, misuse of a CRF can get one in the same mess as as mis-use of a Push-feed. ...I found that the Austrian ammunition I was using was defective. In this particular batch, some split at the neck of the cartridge when fired, and others simply refused to fire at all... ..“After that, I stopped using the beautiful little .256 and went back to my trusty 7 mm Mauser. Using German (that is DWM) ammunition, I never had a problem... ...“And I was never charged by a buffalo after this, because, quite simply, they never got the chance to charge me: I made very sure to kill them first, and used only the Mauser with DWM ammunition... Yet some on AR will claim that Bell went to 7x57 simply because it was more economical than the big bore stuff. overall, Bell took near 1800 DG-animals with 6.5 & 7mm bore size....  ...So, strictly speaking, I have never been charged by a buffalo, despite killing some 700 of these animals. But do you think any hunter would believe me when I say this?... somewhat of an anticlimax some would say...especially for those who prefer to hear the exaggerated emotive accounts from the likes of Hemingway, Ruark and Crapstick.. [endQUOTE] | |||
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I also experienced this quite often in my younger years....it's nothing to do with buffalo, it's too much booze | |||
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Carrying a double with the action open: that was ignorant. I wonder if he carried his bolt action rifles around with the bolt pulled back. Wiring the triggers together: that falls more along the lines of stupid. The recoil would have been ferocious. interesting revelation... Rich | |||
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I am interested in how certain we are that this is really Bell. | |||
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Get the book and read, this incident is written in the book. | |||
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Why is it the hunting-adventure spin merchant authors like Hemingway,Ruark,Capstick, Osa Johnson,,.. all became alcoholics? aside from their emotive embellishment of hunting/adventure, people like Osa Johnson were not quite what they made themselves out to be. often hailed as being a flyer,adventurer and crackshot hunter. Neither Osa nor her husband ever flew their aircraft,[their pilot was James Laneri ] Osa was often protected by an off-camera sharpshooter. She was a cute face who helped him sell half-bogus and often times staged films. One book they wrote deals with cannibals. Howeverm tha cannibal theory has been all but debunked, and they knowlingly filmed head-curing ceremonies, passing this off as cannibalism. They starved animals out of their hiding areas for the sake of a photo. But If your trying to sell books, its probably best to not let the facts get in the way of a good adventure story. | |||
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Yeah sure! There were no cannibals in the South Pacific ..... "Trax" has told us so ....   | |||
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