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.
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