Some Of Them Gave Me A Hint To Melt Down My Plate By Asking
If It Were Not Lead.
I had two pewter plates and a piece of zinc which
I now melted into bullets.
I also spent the remainder of my handkerchiefs
in buying spears for them. My men frequently surrounded herds of buffaloes
and killed numbers of the calves. I, too, exerted myself greatly;
but, as I am now obliged to shoot with the left arm, I am a bad shot,
and this, with the lightness of the bullets, made me very unsuccessful.
The more the hunger, the less my success, invariably.
I may here add an adventure with an elephant of one who has had
more narrow escapes than any man living, but whose modesty
has always prevented him from publishing any thing about himself.
When we were on the banks of the Zouga in 1850, Mr. Oswell
pursued one of these animals into the dense, thick, thorny bushes
met with on the margin of that river, and to which the elephant
usually flees for safety. He followed through a narrow pathway
by lifting up some of the branches and forcing his way through the rest;
but, when he had just got over this difficulty, he saw the elephant,
whose tail he had but got glimpses of before, now rushing toward him.
There was then no time to lift up branches, so he tried to force the horse
through them. He could not effect a passage; and, as there was but an instant
between the attempt and failure, the hunter tried to dismount,
but in doing this one foot was caught by a branch, and the spur drawn
along the animal's flank; this made him spring away and throw the rider
on the ground with his face to the elephant, which, being in full chase,
still went on. Mr. Oswell saw the huge fore foot about to descend
on his legs, parted them, and drew in his breath as if to resist
the pressure of the other foot, which he expected would next descend
on his body. He saw the whole length of the under part of the enormous brute
pass over him; the horse got away safely. I have heard of but one other
authentic instance in which an elephant went over a man without injury,
and, for any one who knows the nature of the bush in which this occurred,
the very thought of an encounter in it with such a foe is appalling.
As the thorns are placed in pairs on opposite sides of the branches,
and these turn round on being pressed against, one pair brings the other
exactly into the position in which it must pierce the intruder.
They cut like knives. Horses dread this bush extremely;
indeed, most of them refuse to face its thorns.
On reaching Mburuma's village, his brother came to meet us. We explained
the reason of our delay, and he told us that we were looked upon with alarm.
He said that Siriatomba had been killed near the village of Selole, and hence
that man's fears.
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