Most Antelopes,
When In Distress Or Pursued, Make For The Water.
If hunted, they always do.
A leche shot right through the body, and no limb-bone broken, is almost sure
to get away, while a zebra, with a wound of no greater severity,
will probably drop down dead.
I have seen a rhinoceros, while standing
apparently chewing the cud, drop down dead from a shot in the stomach,
while others shot through one lung and the stomach go off as if little hurt.
But if one should crawl up silently to within twenty yards
either of the white or black rhinoceros, throwing up a pinch of dust
every now and then, to find out that the anxiety to keep the body
concealed by the bushes has not led him to the windward side,
then sit down, rest the elbow on the knees, and aim, slanting a little upward,
at a dark spot behind the shoulders, it falls stone dead.
To show that a shock on the part of the system to which much nervous force
is at the time directed will destroy life, it may be mentioned that an eland,
when hunted, can be dispatched by a wound which does little more
than injure the muscular system; its whole nervous force is then imbuing
the organs of motion; and a giraffe, when pressed hard by a good horse
only two or three hundred yards, has been known to drop down dead,
without any wound being inflicted at all. A full gallop
by an eland or giraffe quite dissipates its power, and the hunters,
aware of this, always try to press them at once to it, knowing that
they have but a short space to run before the animals are in their power.
In doing this, the old sportsmen are careful not to go too close
to the giraffe's tail, for this animal can swing his hind foot round
in a way which would leave little to choose between a kick with it
and a clap from the arm of a windmill.
When the nervous force is entire, terrible wounds may be inflicted
without killing; a tsessebe having been shot through the neck while
quietly feeding, we went to him, and one of the men cut his throat deep enough
to bleed him largely. He started up after this and ran more than a mile,
and would have got clear off had not a dog brought him to bay under a tree,
where we found him standing.
My men, having never had fire-arms in their hands before,
found it so difficult to hold the musket steady at the flash of fire
in the pan, that they naturally expected me to furnish them
with "gun medicine", without which, it is almost universally believed,
no one can shoot straight. Great expectations had been formed
when I arrived among the Makololo on this subject; but, having invariably
declined to deceive them, as some for their own profit have done,
my men now supposed that I would at last consent, and thereby relieve myself
from the hard work of hunting by employing them after due medication.
This I was most willing to do, if I could have done it honestly;
for, having but little of the hunting `furore' in my composition,
I always preferred eating the game to killing it. Sulphur is the remedy
most admired, and I remember Sechele giving a large price
for a very small bit. He also gave some elephants' tusks, worth 30 Pounds,
for another medicine which was to make him invulnerable to musket balls.
As I uniformly recommended that these things should be tested by experiment,
a calf was anointed with the charm and tied to a tree. It proved decisive,
and Sechele remarked it was "pleasanter to be deceived than undeceived."
I offered sulphur for the same purpose, but that was declined, even though
a person came to the town afterward and rubbed his hands with a little
before a successful trial of shooting at a mark.
I explained to my men the nature of a gun, and tried to teach them,
but they would soon have expended all the ammunition in my possession.
I was thus obliged to do all the shooting myself ever afterward.
Their inability was rather a misfortune; for, in consequence of working
too soon after having been bitten by the lion, the bone of my left arm had not
united well. Continual hard manual labor, and some falls from ox-back,
lengthened the ligament by which the ends of the bones were united,
and a false joint was the consequence. The limb has never been painful,
as those of my companions on the day of the rencounter with the lion
have been, but, there being a joint too many, I could not steady the rifle,
and was always obliged to shoot with the piece resting on the left shoulder.
I wanted steadiness of aim, and it generally happened that the more hungry
the party became, the more frequently I missed the animals.
We spent a Sunday on our way up to the confluence of the Leeba and Leeambye.
Rains had fallen here before we came, and the woods had put on
their gayest hue. Flowers of great beauty and curious forms grow every where;
they are unlike those in the south, and so are the trees.
Many of the forest-tree leaves are palmated and largely developed;
the trunks are covered with lichens, and the abundance of ferns
which appear in the woods shows we are now in a more humid climate
than any to the south of the Barotse valley. The ground begins to swarm
with insect life; and in the cool, pleasant mornings the welkin rings
with the singing of birds, which is not so delightful as the notes of birds
at home, because I have not been familiar with them from infancy.
The notes here, however, strike the mind by their loudness and variety,
as the wellings forth from joyous hearts of praise to Him
who fills them with overflowing gladness.
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