B. And I Procured Our Desired Number Of Colobus By Taking
Advantage Of This Habit-As Soon As We Had Learned It.
Shooting
the beasts with our rifles we soon found to be not only very
difficult, but also destructive of the skins.
On the other hand,
a man could not, save by sheer good fortune, rely on stalking
near enough to use a shotgun. Therefore we evolved a method
productive of the maximum noise, row, barked shins, thorn wounds,
tumbles, bruises-and colobus! It was very simple. We took about
twenty boys into the jungle with us, and as soon as we caught
sight of a colobus we chased him madly. That was all there was to
it.
And yet this method, simple apparently to the point of
imbecility, had considerable logic back of it after all; for
after a time somebody managed to get underneath that colobus when
he was at the top of a tree. Then the beast would hide.
Consider then a tumbling riotous mob careering through the jungle
as fast as the jungle would let it, slipping, stumbling, falling
flat, getting tangled hopelessly, disentangling with profane
remarks, falling behind and catching up again, everybody yelling
and shrieking. Ahead of us we caught glimpses of the sleek
bounding black and white creature, running up the long slanting
limbs, and dropping like a plummet into the lower branches of the
next tree. We white men never could keep up with the best of our
men at this sort of work, although in the open country I could
hold them well enough. We could see them dashing through the
thick cover at a great rate of speed far ahead of us. After an
interval came a great shout in chorus. By this we knew that the
quarry had been definitely brought to a stand. Arriving at the
spot we craned our heads backward, and proceeded to get a crick
in the neck trying to make out invisible colobus in the very tops
of the trees above us. For gaudily marked beasts the colobus were
extraordinarily difficult to see. This was in no sense owing to
any far-fetched application of protective colouration; but to the
remarkable skill the animals possessed in concealing themselves
behind apparently the scantiest and most inadequate cover.
Fortunately for us our boys' ability to see them was equally
remarkable. Indeed, the most difficult part of their task was to
point the game out to us. We squinted, and changed position, and
tried hard to follow directions eagerly proffered by a dozen of
the men. Finally one of us would, by the aid of six
power-glasses, make out, or guess at a small tuft of white or
black hair showing beyond the concealment of a bunch of leaves.
We would unlimber the shotgun and send a charge of BB into that
bunch. Then down would plump the game, to the huge and vociferous
delight of all the boys. Or, as occasionally happened, the shot
was followed merely by a shower of leaves and a chorus of
expostulations indicating that we had mistaken the place, and had
fired into empty air.
In this manner we gathered the twelve we required between us. At
noon we sat under the bank, with the tangled roots of trees above
us, and the smooth oily river slipping by. You may be sure we
always selected a spot protected by very shoal water, for the
crocodiles were numerous. I always shot these loathsome creatures
whenever I got a chance, whenever the sound of a shot would not
alarm more valuable game. Generally they were to be seen in
midstream, just the tip of their snouts above water, and
extraordinarily like anything but crocodiles. Often it took
several close scrutinies through the glass to determine the
brutes. This required rather nice shooting. More rarely we
managed to see them on the banks, or only half submerged. In this
position, too, they were all but undistinguishable as living
creatures. I think this is perhaps because of their complete
immobility. The creatures of the woods, standing quite still, are
difficult enough to see; but I have a notion that the eye,
unknown to itself, catches the sum total of little flexings of
the muscles, movements of the skin, winkings, even the play of
wind and light in the hair of the coat, all of which, while
impossible of analysis, together relieve the appearance of dead
inertia. The vitality of a creature like the crocodile, however,
seems to have withdrawn into the inner recesses of its being. It
lies like a log of wood, and for a log of wood it is mistaken.
Nevertheless the crocodile has stored in it somewhere a fearful
vitality. The swiftness of its movements when seizing prey is
most astonishing; a swirl of water, the sweep of a powerful tail,
and the unfortunate victim has disappeared. For this reason it is
especially dangerous to approach the actual edge of any of the
great rivers, unless the water is so shallow that the crocodile
could not possibly approach under cover, as is its cheerful
habit. We had considerable difficulty in impressing this
elementary truth on our hill-bred totos until one day, hearing
wild shrieks from the direction of the river, I rushed down to
find the lot huddled together in the very middle of a sand spit
that-reached well out into the stream. Inquiry developed that
while paddling in the shallows they had been surprised by the
sudden appearance of an ugly snout and well drenched by the sweep
of an eager tail. The stroke fortunately missed. We stilled the
tumult, sat down quietly to wait, and at the end of ten minutes
had the satisfaction of abating that croc.
Generally we killed the brutes where we found them and allowed
them to drift away with the current. Occasionally however we
wanted a piece of hide, and then tried to retrieve them. One such
occasion showed very vividly the tenacity of life and the
primitive nervous systems of these great saurians.
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