The Nile Tributaries Of Abyssinia And The Sword Hunters Of The Hamran Arabs By Sir Samuel W. Baker
 -  These No. 10 Reillys* were
wonderfully powerful rifles, and exceedingly handy; they weighed
fourteen pounds, and were admirably adapted for - Page 151
The Nile Tributaries Of Abyssinia And The Sword Hunters Of The Hamran Arabs By Sir Samuel W. Baker - Page 151 of 290 - First - Home

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These No.

10 Reillys* were wonderfully powerful rifles, and exceedingly handy; they weighed fourteen pounds, and were admirably adapted for dangerous game. I measured both the elephants accurately with a tape:

That killed by the "Baby" was nine feet six inches from the forefoot to the shoulder, the other was eight feet three inches. It is a common mistake that twice the circumference of the foot is the height of an elephant; there is no such rule that can be depended upon, as their feet vary in size without any relative proportion to the height of the animal.

* They are now in England at Mr. Reilly's, No. 215, Oxford Street, having accompanied me throughout my expedition, and they have never been out of order.

A most interesting fact had occurred: when I found the larger elephant, killed by the "Baby," I noticed an old wound unhealed and full of matter in the front of the left shoulder; the bowels were shot through, and were green in various places. Florian suggested that it must be an elephant that I had wounded at Wat el Negur; we tracked the course of the bullet most carefully, until we at length discovered my unmistakeable bullet of quicksilver and lead, almost uninjured, in the fleshy part of the thigh, imbedded in an unhealed wound. Thus, by a curious chance, upon my first interview with African elephants by daylight, I had killed the identical elephant that I had wounded at Wat el Negur forty-three days ago in the dhurra plantation, twenty-eight miles distant! Both these elephants were females. It was the custom of these active creatures to invade the dhurra fields from this great distance, and to return to these almost impenetrable thorny jungles, where they were safe from the attack of the aggageers, but not from the rifles.

On our return to camp, the rejoicings were great; the women yelled as usual, and I delighted the Hamrans by dividing the meat, and presenting them with the hides for shields. I gave Abou Do, and all the hunters, and my camel drivers, large quantities of fat; and I found that I was accredited as a brother hunter by the knights of the sword, who acknowledged that their weapons were useless in the thick jungles of Tooleet, the name of the place where we had killed the elephants.

CHAPTER XII.

OLD NEPTUNE JOINS THE PARTY.

WE started from Geera, on the 23d of December, with our party complete. The Hamran sword-hunters were Abou Do, Jali, and Suleiman. My chief tracker was Taher Noor, who, although a good hunter, was not a professional aggahr, and I was accompanied by the father of Abou Do, who was a renowned "howarti," or harpooner of hippopotami. This magnificent old man might have been Neptune himself; he stood about six feet two, and his grizzled locks hung upon his shoulders in thick and massive curls, while his deep bronze features could not have been excelled in beauty of outline.

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