Part 5 (1/2)
HUNTING THE WHITE RHINOCEROS,
LION, BUFFALO, AND GIRAFFE.
Upon the 9th, says Mr. c.u.mming, it rained unceasingly throughout the day, converting the rich soil on which we were encamped into one ma.s.s of soft, sticky clay. In the forenoon, fearing the rain would continue so as to render the valley (through which we must pa.s.s to gain the firmer ground) impa.s.sible, I ordered my men to prepare to march, and leave the tent with its contents standing, the point which I wished to gain being distant only about five hundred yards. When the oxen were inspanned, however, and we attempted to move, we found my tackle, which was old, so rotten from the effects of the rain, that something gave way at every strain. Owing to this and to the softness of the valley, we labored on till sundown, and only succeeded in bringing one wagon to its destination, the other two remained fast in the mud in the middle of the valley. Next morning, luckily, the weather cleared up, when my men brought over the tent, and in the afternoon the other two wagons.
We followed up the banks of the river for several days, with the usual allowance of sport. On the 16th we came suddenly upon an immense old bull muchocho rolling in mud. He sprang to his feet immediately he saw me, and, charging up the bank, so frightened our horses, that before I could get my rifle from my after-rider he was past us. I then gave him chase, and, after a hard gallop of about a mile, sprang from my horse and gave him a good shot behind the shoulder. At this moment a cow rhinoceros of the same species, with her calf, charged out of some wait-a-bit thorn cover, and stood right in my path. Observing that she carried an unusually long horn, I turned my attention from the bull to her, and, after a very long and severe chase, dropped her at the sixth shot. I carried one of my rifles, which gave me much trouble, that not being the tool required for this sort of work, where quick loading is indispensable.
After breakfast I sent men to cut off the head of this rhinoceros, and proceeded with Ruyter to take up the spoor of the bull wounded in the morning. We found that he was very severely hit, and having followed the spoor for about a mile through very dense thorn cover, he suddenly rustled out of the bushes close ahead of us, accompanied by a whole host of rhinoceros birds. I mounted my horse and gave him chase, and in a few minutes he had received four severe shots. I managed to turn his course toward camp, when I ceased firing, as he seemed to be nearly done up, and Ruyter and I rode slowly behind, occasionally shouting to guide his course. Presently, however, Chukuroo ceased taking any notice of us, and held leisurely on for the river, into a shallow part of which he walked, and, after panting there and turning about for a quarter of an hour, he fell over and expired. This was a remarkably fine old bull, and from his dent.i.tion it was not improbable that a hundred summers had seen him roaming a peaceful denizen of the forests and open glades along the fair banks of the secluded Mariqua.
During our march, on the 19th, we had to cross a range of very rocky hills, covered with large loose stones, and all hands were required to be actively employed for about an hour, in clearing them out of the way, to permit the wagons to pa.s.s. The work went on fast and furious, and the quant.i.ty of stones cleared was immense. At length we reached the spot where we were obliged to bid adieu to the Mariqua, and hold a westerly course across the country for Sicheley. At sundown we halted under a lofty mountain, the highest in the district, called ”Lynchie a Cheny,”
or the Monkey's Mountain.
Next day, at an early hour, I rode out with Ruyter to hunt, my camp being entirely without flesh, and we having been rationed upon very tough old rhinoceros for several days past. It was a cloudy morning, and soon after starting, it came on to rain heavily. I, however, held on, skirting a fine, well-wooded range of mountains, and after riding several miles I shot a zebra. Having covered the carca.s.s well over with branches to protect it from the vultures, I returned to camp, and, inspanning my wagons, took it up on the march. We continued trekking on until sundown, when we started an immense herd of buffaloes, into which I stalked, and shot a huge old bull.
Our march this evening was through the most beautiful country I had ever seen in Africa. We skirted an endless range of well-wooded stony mountains lying on our left, while to our right the country at first sloped gently off, and then stretched away into a level green forest, (occasionally interspersed with open glades,) boundless as the ocean.
This green forest was, however, relieved in one direction by a chain of excessively bold, detached, well-wooded, rocky, pyramidal mountains, which stood forth in grand relief. In advance the picture was bounded by forest and mountain; one bold acclivity, in shape of a dome, standing prominent among its fellows. It was a lovely evening: the sky, overcast and gloomy, threw an interesting, wild, mysterious coloring over the landscape. I gazed forth upon the romantic scene before me with intense delight, and felt melancholy and sorrowful at pa.s.sing so fleetingly through it, and could not help shouting out, as I marched along, ”Where is the coward who would not dare to die for such a land?”
In the morning we held for a fountain some miles ahead, in a gorge in the mountains. As we approached the fountain, and were pa.s.sing close under a steep, rocky, hillside, well wooded to its summit, I unexpectedly beheld a lion stealing up the rocky face, and, halting behind a tree, he stood overhauling us for some minutes. I resolved to give him battle, and, seizing my rifle, marched against him, followed by Carey carrying a spare gun, and by three men leading my dogs, now reduced to eight. When we got close in to the base of the mountain, we found ourselves enveloped in dense jungle, which extended half-way to its summit, and entirely obscured from our eyes objects which were quite apparent from the wagons, I slipped my dogs, however, which, after snuffing about, took right up the steep face on the spoor of the lions, for there was a troop of them--a lion and three lionesses.
The people at the wagons saw the chase in perfection. When the lions observed the dogs coming on, they took right up, and three of them crossed over the sky ridge. The dogs, however, turned one rattling old lioness, which came rumbling down through the cover, close past me. I ran to meet her, and she came to bay in an open spot near the base of the mountain, whither I quickly followed, and coming up within thirty yards, bowled her over with my first shot, which broke her back. My second entered her shoulder; and, fearing that she might hurt any of the dogs, as she still evinced signs of life, I finished her with a third in the breast. The bellies of all the four lions were much distended by some game they had been gorging, no doubt a buffalo, as a large herd started out of the jungle immediately under the spot where the n.o.ble beasts were first disturbed.
Showers of rain fell every hour throughout the day, so I employed my men in making feldt-schoens, or, in other words, African brogues for me.
These shoes were worthy of a sportsman, being light, yet strong, and were entirely composed of the skins of game of my shooting. The soles were made of either buffalo or cameleopard; the front part, perhaps, of koodoo, or hartebeest, or bushbuck, and the back of the shoe of lion, or hyaena, or sable antelope, while the rheimpy or thread with which the whole was sewed, consisted of a thin strip of the skin of a steinbok.
On the forenoon of this day, I rode forth to hunt, accompanied by Ruyter; we held west, skirting the wooded, stony mountains. The natives had here, many years before, waged successful war with elephants, four of whose skulls I found. Presently I came across two sa.s.saybies, one of which I knocked over; but, while I was loading, he regained his legs and made off. We crossed a level stretch of forest, holding a northerly course for an opposite range of green, well-wooded hills and valleys.
Here I came upon a troop of six fine, old bull buffaloes, into which I stalked, and wounded one princely fellow very severely, behind the shoulder, bringing blood from his mouth; he, however, made off with his comrades, and, the ground being very rough, we failed to overtake him.
They held for Ngotwani. After following the spoor for a couple of miles, we dropped it, as it led right away from camp.
Returning from this chase, we had an adventure with another old bull buffalo, which shows the extreme danger of hunting buffaloes without dogs. We started him in a green hollow, among the hills, and his course inclining for camp. I gave him chase. He crossed the level, broad strath, and made for the opposite densely-wooded range of mountains.
Along the base of these we followed him, sometimes in view, sometimes on the spoor, keeping the old fellow at a pace which made him pant. At length, finding himself much distressed, he had recourse to a singular stratagem. Doubling round some thick bushes, which obscured him from our view, he found himself beside a small pool of rain-water, just deep enough to cover his body; into this he walked, and, facing about, lay gently down and awaited our on-coming, with nothing but his old, gray face, and ma.s.sive horns above the water, and these concealed from view by the overhanging herbage.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARGE OF THE BUFFALO.]
Our attention was entirely engrossed with the spoor, and thus we rode boldly on until within a few feet of him, when, springing to his feet, he made a desperate charge after Ruyter, uttering a low, stifled roar, peculiar to buffaloes, (somewhat similar to the growl of a lion,) and hurled horse and rider to the earth with fearful violence. His horn laid the poor horse's haunch open to the bone, making the most fearful rugged wound. In an instant, Ruyter regained his feet and ran for his life, which the buffalo observing, gave chase, but most fortunately came down, with a tremendous somersault, in the mud, his feet slipping from under him; thus the bushman escaped certain destruction. The buffalo rose much discomfitted, and, the wounded horse first catching his eye, he went a second time after him; but he got out of the way. At this moment, I managed to send one of my patent pacificating pills into his shoulder, when he instantly quitted the field of action, and sought shelter in a dense cover on the mountain side, whither I deemed it imprudent to follow him.
A LEOPARD HUNT.
The dense jungles of Bengal was the place of the leopard's resort, and the havoc which it committed among the cattle was prodigious. It was dreaded, far and near, on this account, by the natives, and they scrupulously avoided their spotted enemy, knowing well that when his appet.i.te was whetted with hunger, he was not over scrupulous whether his victims were beasts or men. On one occasion, the monster made a dash upon a herd of beeves, and succeeded in carrying off a large ox; and loud was the lament of the poor Hindoos that one of the sacred herd had thus unceremoniously been a.s.sailed and slaughtered before their eyes. A party of the Bengal native infantry, consisting of an officer and five others, having been informed of the circ.u.mstance, followed in the direction of the leopard's den determined, if possible, to punish him for this and the many other depredations he had committed. Having come to an intervening ravine, they were about to cross it, when they saw the object of their search on the opposite side. There he was, lying in his lair, heedless of danger, and luxuriously feasting on the carca.s.s of his captive. It was the monster's last meal, however. The party approached with stealthy steps, as near as they could without crossing the defile.
”Take your aim! fire!” cried the captain, in Hindostanee, we suppose.
They did so, and four b.a.l.l.s pierced the leopard, three in the neck and one in a more dangerous place, through the brain. Startled by this unpleasant salute, the animal rose, gazed with glaring eyes on its enemies, at the same time pawing the earth in its pain fury.
The sepoys were astonished that he did not roll lifeless at their feet; but, instead of this, before they had time to reload, the creature, after uttering a terrific cry, sprang across the ravine and seized one of its a.s.sailants. It must have been, in some degree, weakened by its wounds; but its strength was yet great, for the man seemed to have no power of resistance to its attack. The leopard, having a hold of the sepoy in its mouth, darted off in the direction of a jungle close at hand, the other soldiers following up as fast as they could, but not daring to fire, lest they should injure their luckless comrade Sometimes they lost sight of the leopard and its bleeding burden; but the blood marks on the gra.s.s or on the sand enabled them to regain the trail, and to carry on the pursuit. The animal at length came to a small river; it hesitated for a little on the brink, and then leaped in, still tenaciously retaining its prey. The stoppage thus occasioned enabled the pursuers to gain ground, and, just after the leopard had emerged from the river, and was shaking its skin free from the watery drops, one of the party seized the auspicious moment, and fired. The beast dropped its prey at once, howled furiously, and then fell dead. To their great surprise and joy, the soldiers found that their comrade was still in life, though he had fainted from fear and from weakness occasioned by the loss of blood. He gradually recovered, and, under the stimulating influence of a cup of brandy, was able to proceed home with his comrades. It was many weeks, however, before he was fit for service, and he will retain till his dying day the dental marks received from the leopard, by way of token what it would like to have done with him had there been none but themselves two on the desert wide.
The soldiers returned, some time after, and skinned the animal, carrying home its spotted covering for a trophy; and now, here it is, with the marks of the musket-b.a.l.l.s upon it, remembrances of the strange story we have now recounted.