From ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER.


“ All this while, we have kept in a kind of natural telegraphic communication with my men following in the rear. They track us as we track the elephants, and, here and there, we break a twig or bend the grass for their information, sometimes, even dragging our feet along the ground to give them an unmistakable indication of the direction we have taken. If I wish them to go easy, I tie a piece of handkerchief to a twig; if they are to follow fast, I drop fragments of my handkerchief on the path; if I desire them to halt dead, I lay my handkerchief or tie the grass right across the path. ”

I haven't read that particular book but if they were ivory hunters I would assume those in rear are the ones who actually processed the elephant and needed to give the hunters space in order to hunt. If so it would make sense.

James Sutherland book.


After another period of arduous tracking, we discovered that they had left the bush and taken to a comparatively open country, so, breaking into a steady but somewhat feeble trot, we managed, about an hour afterwards, to come up with them, just in time to see them, in single file, slowly entering a patch of long grass.

As the sun was rapidly sinking and darkness would be upon us in less than an hour, it was now a case of neck or nothing, so straining every muscle, we dashed after them, excitement and the cool, crisp air of evening pouring new life into our veins. What a devil-may-care rush it was—smashing through the long grass, jumping over fallen trees and bent and broken bamboos; now running, doubled in two under a dense canopy of branches, again tearing full-speed across small open spaces in the forest!

All the while, too, we were keenly alive to the possibility that one of the herd might double back for us with a rush; for often a hard-pressed elephant will wait absolutely motionless in cover until the hunter is quite near, when he will charge without any warning scream, giving his adversary no time to aim, barely time to drive the bullets in his face in the hope that one will reach his brain or that their impact will make him swerve aside or turn.

All at once, as we careered madly on, the sharp snapping of some bamboos, a few hundred yards ahead, warned us that we were in critical proximity to our quarry, so we slowed down, and, discovering that we were to windward of them, ceased following the spoor and made a détour. Spying a large anthill on our right, we very stealthily made our way towards it and from its summit, saw, to our joy, the four elephants standing about a hundred yards away.

One of their number, an enormous bull, with singularly long tusks, was standing a dozen yards behind the others, looking back on the spoor, as if awaiting his pursuers. Down we scrambled at once, and, endeavouring to keep to leeward, crept nearer and nearer to him. On this occasion, old Dame Fortune surely favoured us, for when we were about thirty yards from the giant, he suddenly turned and, with his enormous ears outspread at right angles to his head, steadily gazed in our direction.

A bullet from my ˙577 between his eyes, penetrated his brain, instantly dropping him. As the other three, probably curious to know what had befallen their comrade, rushed up to where he lay, I managed to secure a second with a beautiful shot just a little in front of the ear-hole. One of the remaining two, scared by the fusillade, took refuge in flight; the other, apparently mystified by the behaviour of his companions, stood hesitant, so, seizing my second rifle from Simba, I placed a bullet in his heart and another in the vertebrae of the neck, bringing him down with a crash beside his fellows.

As there was still about half-an-hour’s daylight left, I determined to make an effort to secure the fourth, and without waiting to examine our prizes, set out in pursuit of him. Hardly had we got to work on the spoor, when, much to our astonishment, we heard him crashing through some bamboos in our rear, evidently having circled round to the spot where he had hurriedly parted from his comrades. Unfortunately, he was to lee of us, and getting a whiff of tainted air, plunged madly into a thicket of bamboos, through which we followed him with extreme difficulty.

As the light was now failing, and Simba was almost bent double over the spoor, I thought it wise, before proceeding further, to ascertain the nature of the country ahead of us, so, noticing a tree about a hundred yards to our left, I bade Simba go and climb it and return as quickly as possible with his report. He had almost reached the tree in question when, to my horror, I heard a terrific scream and, next moment saw Simba dashing back towards me for dear life with the elephant in hot pursuit. Shouting to him to turn to the left that I might have an unobstructed view of the infuriated animal, who was now only about thirty yards behind his intended victim, I took hasty aim and fired, the bullet striking the brute in the side of the head. For an instant he staggered, and then came charging on again!

At the same moment, Simba, catching his foot in a creeper, plunged heavily forward on his face, and for one awful second I thought it was all up with my faithful old tracker. In a flash, to my intense relief, he was on his feet again, but, being thoroughly scared, instead of running at an angle, dashed straight on towards me, completely obstructing my view of the animal. Rushing past and slightly to the right of my man, I gave the elephant the contents of my second barrel in the forehead, the terrific impact of the bullet hurling him back on his haunches.

The shot, however, struck him too high up to prove fatal, and speedily recovering, he made tracks for the long grass from which he had emerged on seeing my tracker. More determined than ever to bag him—for he had a very fine pair of tusks—I hastily grabbed my light rifle from Simba and gave chase. Ere he had gone far, I managed to place a bullet in the vicinity of his heart, whereupon he instantly turned, and, uttering a succession of short, shrill, screams, bore down upon me.

When he was within forty yards of me, I fired in his face—the light was too uncertain for taking careful aim—but the small bullet proved absolutely ineffectual, and as he continued his onward career, I drove another through his forehead, hoping to reach his brain and drop him. Still he came on, with head lowered, trunk extended, and blood streaming down his face, and was within fifteen yards of me, when I pulled back the bolt of my rifle to drive another cartridge into the breech, only to discover, to my horror, that the magazine was empty. In the excitement of the hunt, I had completely forgotten that I had already spent two of the five cartridges on the last bull I had shot! There was no time, however, to curse my stupidity, so, fully convinced that this, as far as I was concerned, was the end of all things, I flung my rifle with all my might into the elephant’s face and sprang to the left.

At the same moment, I heard a terrific report a few inches behind me, and turned to find Simba standing with my heavy rifle in his hands. Seeing my predicament, he had slipped a cartridge into the weapon and fired it at the animal in the very nick of time, the bullet passing through the brute’s trunk and crashing into his mouth. Immediately swerving to the right, the elephant collided with a tree, knocking it over like a ninepin, and bursting through the branches, as if they had been so much matchwood, continued his wild career for another fifty yards before coming to a standstill. Snatching my heavy rifle from Simba, I slipped a couple of cartridges into it, and, rushing up to the unsteady old warrior, sent a bullet through his heart. He toppled over with a tremendous crash, and after a few gasps, lay still.

NEAR the Sultan Leanduka’s village on the Luwegu River, in German East Africa, I had, in the Autumn of 1908, a most exciting adventure with an elephant. All day long, we had kept doggedly on the tracks of a herd of five big bulls, at one time forcing our way through dense scrub bristling with thorns, at another warily spooring among belts of giant reeds which marked the dried-up courses of tributary streamlets of the Luwegu, itself, at the time, a mere winding expanse of soft, dry sand.

Towards evening, we came up with our quarry in an open space, where the sere grass had been levelled by winds and trampled by game, and here I managed, without any notable incident, to account for four of the herd. The fifth, I wounded in the region of the heart as he was bolting full speed across a clearing (where the natives had fired the grass), dotted here and there with a few stunted trees. Immediately on being hit, he pivoted round, lowered his enormous head, and screaming with rage, charged straight at me!


The celerity and determination with which he came on was not calculated to inspire equanimity, but it was a moment when the necessity for keeping cool was paramount, so, patiently waiting till he was within twenty paces of me, I gave him the contents of the second barrel full in the face. Though the bullet tore through his left eye and emerged on the same side of the head, it utterly failed, to my amazement, to stop or turn him, and, next moment, he was upon me.

A vicious blow from his tusk sent me hurtling against my tracker, Simba, who was a few paces away from me on my right, and together we came heavily to earth. Ere I had time to scramble to my feet, the elephant had turned, and seizing me by my khaki shirt underneath the right shoulder, flung me high above him in the air. Though rudely shaken, I was vividly conscious of all that was occurring, and, curiously enough, as I spun through space, the awful conviction flashed through my mind that I had seen the last of my hunting days.

I landed on the elephant’s back, rolled helplessly off, and came with a thud to earth, where I still had sufficient presence of mind to lie absolutely motionless to avoid further attracting his attention. I had fallen on my face and lay with my lower limbs beneath his towering, bulky body, between his fore and hind legs, my left foot actually touching the toes of his left hind foot.

From that unenviable position, still in full possession of every faculty and keenly alive to every move of the game, I saw him tremulously moving his trunk about, to right, to left, above and below, probably considering what his next move was to be. At this moment, the question flashed through my mind, how will he finish me off? And with irrelevant curiosity, I glanced up to see where my bullet had struck him. I experienced no fear of death, I was not conscious of any panorama of my life passing swiftly over my mind; all excitement had vanished and my heart was not even beating wildly.

I was simply soliloquizing: ‘In which way is he going to kill me? Will he kneel on and trample me horribly? Will he drive his tusk right through my body, or will he, by some heaven-sent chance, leave me alone? Whichever way it is, may it be swiftly over and done with!’ While these thoughts were passing with peculiar calmness and lucidity through my brain, the elephant deliberately turned round, caught me by the shoulder and flung me violently into the branches of a small tree some fourteen yards away, the impact at once knocking me senseless. On regaining consciousness, a few minutes later, I found myself lying on the ground with Simba kneeling over me vigorously shaking me with one hand, while he pointed excitedly with the other to where the elephant stood sniffing the air, some thirty yards away. I made a desperate effort to rise to my feet, but found, to my intense dismay, that owing to the injuries I had received, this was an impossibility.

My back, head, and legs felt as if they had been thoroughly beaten, my left hip was terribly bruised, while my left eye was almost closed up, but, judge of my annoyance, when I discovered that my left thumb was dislocated and my left arm and shoulder so badly strained that I was quite unable to hold my rifle in position. In the mêlée, I had dropped my heavy ˙577 elephant rifle, so bidding Simba sit down beside me, I managed, with some difficulty, to place my ˙318 across his shoulder and fire for the elephant’s ear; but owing to the shaking I had received, I couldn’t, try as I would, keep my rifle steady, and the bullet, instead of hitting him in the desired spot and penetrating his brain, went wide and struck him high up on the right side of the head.

At once, he slewed round and advanced towards us as if utterly surprised to find that he had failed to annihilate his enemy. So, telling Simba to hold my rifle barrel firmly, I drove another cartridge into the breech and waited patiently for my bulky opponent. When he was within fourteen or fifteen yards of us, I took aim and making a supreme effort to control my breath and steady my hand, pressed the trigger. The bullet struck him right between the eyes, bringing him to his knees as if poleaxed, and as he struggled gamely to rise, I finished him with another shot. On my men arriving and helping me up to the elephant to make my usual examination of the prize, I was astonished to find that his tail was absolutely devoid of hair.

Sometimes, in old elephants, the tails are found greatly denuded of hair, only the stumps of the long, whalebone-like bristles remaining as evidence of youthful, hirsute glory, but, in the specimen of which I speak, no hairs have ever developed and the appendage is merely covered with a short, barely perceptible down. I still retain this freak tail as a memento, and shall be delighted to show it to anyone who may be interested.