Sporting Adventures In The Congo Basin.



Hunting the Elephant THE N’Gongu river is the place of all places for elephant hunting; so my Aszonda boy, Bangolyaw, told me, and what Bangolyaw said could be depended upon. He was part albino with red hair and a growth of the same colored wool all over his body.

He was small and pleasant featured, there was no protruding chin or flat nose in his case, and some explorers might easily have classed him as a pigmy. Bangolyaw was the most trustworthy and intelligent elephant hunter I ever had. I taught him how to shoot, and he became a better shot than myself. He never let me get out of his sight when I was going to shoot an elephant, while all the other natives would run away and hide. I liked him because he was brave, and felt that in him I had a trusty companion. On the evening before the hunt on the N’Gongu I overheard the men of Ratto asking him, “How does the white man kill the elephant alone in that way?” Bangolyaw then described the hunt we had had several days before. His picture was graphic. “The elephant was in a swampy forest where it seemed as if the trees were as old as the world. Their roots had filled the soft mucky earth.

Nothing but an elephant could force its way through, and here he has tunneled his paths for thousands of years unmolested by man or beast.” These Africans know these places, and could appreciate the situation. If a hunter encountered an elephant in one of these places there was no chance of escape either to right or left. “We had tracked a fine animal here, and Demba Creecy was behind a big tree at the side of the path,” continued Bangolyaw, “I was behind one not far off, Demba Creecy had just left me, I tried to hold him back. We were very close to the elephant but couldn’t see him, Demba Creecy wasn’t over that far from the elephant.” Bangolyaw took some ten steps, and, getting behind a tree, peeped out at the men. “He waited, and waited, and waited. He was there until I held my breath so long that I thought I should die, all the time expecting the elephant to smell us, and there was no place to run. Demba Creecy couldn’t see him at all. The elephant was standing there,” Bangolyaw made a sound like a snore and lifting his foot brought it down like a cow stamping off the flies. “Mbaty a picca mbonna ketta peppy” (fear hadn’t caught the elephant a little bit).

Bangolyaw wiggled about, peering out into the bush as though trying to get sight of the elephant. Then a look of satisfaction came into his face as he lifted his hands to aim. “Then boom went the gun,” imitating the firing of a gun. Falling on his knees with his elbows on the ground he showed how the elephant had fallen in his tracks, the joints of his legs giving way, and his tusks plowing the ground as they fall when shot through the brain.

All this was told with pantomime descriptions. The natives listened with wide-open eyes until it was finished, and then they turned instinctively and looked at me. I was sitting back of them in my long chair pretending to read, but in reality I had been listening with as great interest as the natives, and I had learned how to describe an elephant hunt. When the natives again turned to the story teller, Bangolyaw was measuring the tree hand over hand to a height above his head. “That was the length of the tusks.”

The listeners opened their eyes wider if possible, put their index fingers over their lips, pressed upon them for a second, then brought the upper teeth down over the lower lips. This was the native way of expressing surprise, admiration and approval.

Another great excerpt and a new book to add to my list.

Where or when, or by who is the book published? Thank you.

Published 1901 by McLure
Again in 1903 by Hirst.