Then Began The Piping Of Her Enemies,
Which Was Performed By Blowing Into A Tube, Or The Hands Closed Together,
As Boys Do Into A Key.
They call out to attract the animal's attention,
"O chief!
Chief! we have come to kill you.
O chief! chief! many more will die besides you, etc.
The gods have said it," etc., etc.
Both animals expanded their ears and listened, then left their bath
as the crowd rushed toward them. The little one ran forward
toward the end of the valley, but, seeing the men there, returned to his dam.
She placed herself on the danger side of her calf, and passed her proboscis
over it again and again, as if to assure it of safety. She frequently looked
back to the men, who kept up an incessant shouting, singing, and piping;
then looked at her young one and ran after it, sometimes sideways,
as if her feelings were divided between anxiety to protect her offspring
and desire to revenge the temerity of her persecutors. The men kept
about a hundred yards in her rear, and some that distance from her flanks,
and continued thus until she was obliged to cross a rivulet.
The time spent in descending and getting up the opposite bank
allowed of their coming up to the edge, and discharging their spears
at about twenty yards distance. After the first discharge she appeared
with her sides red with blood, and, beginning to flee for her own life,
seemed to think no more of her young. I had previously sent off Sekwebu
with orders to spare the calf. It ran very fast, but neither young nor old
ever enter into a gallop; their quickest pace is only a sharp walk.
Before Sekwebu could reach them, the calf had taken refuge in the water,
and was killed. The pace of the dam gradually became slower. She turned
with a shriek of rage, and made a furious charge back among the men.
They vanished at right angles to her course, or sideways,
and, as she ran straight on, she went through the whole party,
but came near no one except a man who wore a piece of cloth on his shoulders.
Bright clothing is always dangerous in these cases. She charged
three or four times, and, except in the first instance,
never went farther than 100 yards. She often stood after she had
crossed a rivulet, and faced the men, though she received fresh spears.
It was by this process of spearing and loss of blood that she was killed;
for at last, making a short charge, she staggered round and sank down dead
in a kneeling posture. I did not see the whole hunt, having been
tempted away by both sun and moon appearing unclouded. I turned from
the spectacle of the destruction of noble animals, which might be made
so useful in Africa, with a feeling of sickness, and it was not relieved
by the recollection that the ivory was mine, though that was the case.
I regretted to see them killed, and more especially the young one,
the meat not being at all necessary at that time; but it is right to add
that I did not feel sick when my own blood was up the day before.
We ought, perhaps, to judge those deeds more leniently in which we ourselves
have no temptation to engage.
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