Part 7

There are only a few survivors left of this world-old race of giants. Many species, probably, have disappeared without leaving a single trace behind. The block granite sarcophagi on the Field of the Dead in Sakkarah in Egypt, dating from 3,500 years ago, are memorials (each weighing some 64 tons) of the sacred bulls of Apis: the mightiest monument ever raised by man to beast. Bulls were sacred to Ptah, the God of Memphis, and their gravestones--which Mariette, for instance, brought to light in 1851--yield striking evidence of the pomp attached to the cult of animals in those days of old.

But no monument has been raised to the African elephants that have been slaughtered by millions in the last hundred years. Save for some of the huge tusks for which they were killed, there will be scarcely a trace of them in the days to come, when their Indian cousins--the sacred white elephants--may perhaps still be revered.

John Hanning Speke, who with his fellow-countryman Grant discovered the Victoria Nyanza, found elephant herds grazing quite peacefully on its banks. The animals, nowadays so wild, hardly took any notice when some of their number were killed or wounded: they merely passed a little farther on and returned to their grazing.

The same might be said of the Upper Nile swamps in the land of the Dinkas, in English territory, where, thanks to specially favourable conditions, the English have been successfully preserving the elephants. Also in the Knysna forests of Cape Colony some herds of elephants have been preserved by strict protective laws during the last eighty years or so. Experience with Indian elephants has proved that when protected the sagacious beasts are not so shy and wild as is generally the case with those of Africa. For the latter have become, especially the full-grown and experienced specimens, the shyest of creatures, and therefore the most difficult to study.

Should any one differ from me as to this, I would beg him to substantiate his opinion by the help of photographs, taken in the wilderness, of elephants which have not been shot at--photographs depicting for us the African elephant in its native wilds. When he does, I shall “give him best”!

The elephant is no longer to be found anywhere in its original numbers. It is found most frequently in the desert places between Abyssinia and the Nile and the Galla country, or in the inaccessible parts of the Congo, on the Albert Nyanza, and in the hinterlands of Nigeria and the Gold Coast. But in the vicinity of the Victoria Nyanza things have changed greatly. Richard Kandt tells us that a single elephant-hunter, a Dane, who afterwards succumbed to the climate, alone slaughtered hundreds in the course of years.

According to experts in this field of knowledge, some of the huge animals of prehistoric days disappeared in a quite brief space of time from the earth’s surface. But we cannot explain why beasts so well qualified to defend themselves should so speedily cease to exist. However that may be, the fate of the still existing African elephant appears to me tragic. At one time elephants of different kinds dwelt in our own country.[9] Remains of the closely related mammoth, with its long hair adapted to a northern climate, are sometimes excavated from the ice in Siberia. Thus we obtain information about its kind of food, for remnants of food well preserved by the intense cold have been found between the teeth and in the stomach--remnants which botanists have been able to identify.

By a singular coincidence, the mammoth remains preserved in the ice have been found just at a time when the craze for slaughtering their African relations has reached its climax, and when by means of arms that deal out death at great, and therefore safe distances, the work of annihilation is all too rapidly progressing. The scientific equipment of mankind is so nearly perfect that we are able to make the huge ice-bound mammoths, which have perhaps been reposing in their cold grave for thousands of years, speak for themselves. And it can be proved by means of the so-called “physiological blood-proof” that the frozen blood of the Siberian mammoths shows its kinship with the Indian and African elephant!

It is strange to reflect that mankind, having attained to its present condition of enlightenment, should yet have designs upon the last survivors of this African race of giants--and chiefly in the interests of a game! For the ivory is chiefly required to make billiard balls! Is it not possible to contrive some substitute in these days when nothing seems beyond the power of science?

A. H. Neumann, a well-known English hunter, says that some years ago it was already too late to reap a good ivory harvest in Equatorial Africa or in Mombasa. He had to seek farther afield in the far-lying districts between the Indian Ocean and the Upper Nile, where he obtained about £5,000 worth of ivory during one hunting expedition.

Meanwhile powder and shot are at work day and night in the Dark Continent. It is not the white man himself who does most of the work of destruction; it is the native who obtains the greater part of the ivory used in commerce. Two subjects of Manga Bell, for instance, killed a short time back, in the space of a year and a half, elephants enough to provide one hundred and thirty-nine large tusks for their chief! There is no way of changing matters except by completely disarming the African natives. Unless this is done, in a very short time the elephant will only be found in the most inaccessible and unhealthy districts. It does not much matter whether this comes about in a single decade or in several. What are thirty or forty or fifty years, in comparison with the endless ages that have gone to the evolution of these wonderful animals? It is remarkable, too, that in spite of all the hundreds of African elephants which are being killed, not a single museum in the whole world possesses one of the gigantic male elephants which were once so numerous, but which are now so rarely to be met with. Accompanying this chapter is a photograph of the heaviest elephant-tusks which have ever reached the coast from the interior. The two tusks together weigh about 450 pounds. One can form some idea of the size of the elephant which carried them! I was unfortunately unable to obtain these tusks for Germany, although they were taken from German Africa. They were sent to America, and sold for nearly £1,000.

I should like the reader to note, also, the illustration showing a room in an ivory factory. The number of tusks there visible will give an approximate notion of the tremendous slaughter which is being carried on.

The price of ivory has been rising gradually, and is now ten times what it was some forty years ago in the Sudan, according to Brehm’s statistics. In Morgen’s time one could buy a fifty-pound tusk in the Cameroons for some stuff worth about sevenpence. In the last century or two the price of ivory has risen commensurately with that of all other such wares. Nowadays a sum varying from £300 to £400 may be obtained for the egg of the Great Auk, which became extinct less than half a century ago: whilst a stuffed specimen of the bird itself is worth at least £1,000. What will be the price of such things in years to come!

In the light of these remarks the reader will easily understand how greatly I prize the photographs which I secured of two huge old bull-elephants in friendly company with a bull-giraffe, and which are here reproduced. It will be difficult, if not indeed impossible, ever again to photograph such mighty “tuskers” in company with giraffes. In the year 1863 Brehm wrote that no true picture existed of the real African elephant in its own actual haunts. The fact brought to light by these pictures is both new and surprising, especially for the expert, who hitherto has been inclined to believe that giraffes were dwellers on the velt and accustomed to fight shy of the damp forests. That they should remain in such a region in company with elephants for weeks at a time was something hitherto unheard of. I do not know how to express my delight at being able after long hours of patient waiting to sight this rare conjunction of animals from my place of observation either with a Goerz-Trizeder or with the naked eye, but only for a few seconds at a time, because of the heavy showers of rain which kept falling. How disappointing and mortifying it was to find oneself left in the lurch by the sun--and just immediately under the Equator, where one had a right to it! What I had so often experienced in my photographic experiments in the forests by the Rufu River--that is, the want of sunlight for days together--now made me almost desperate. At any moment the little gathering of animals might break up, in which case I should never be able to get a photographic record of the strange friendship. Since the publication of my first work I have often been asked to give some further particulars about this matter. Therefore, perhaps these details, supported by photographs, will not be unacceptable to my readers.

I candidly admit that had I suddenly come upon these great bull-elephants in the jungle in years gone by I could not have resisted killing them. But I have gradually learned to restrain myself in this respect. It would have been a fine sensation from the sportsman’s standpoint, and would besides have brought in a round sum of perhaps £500; but what was all that in comparison with the securing of one single authentic photograph which would afford irrefutable proof of so surprising a fact?

The western spurs of the great Kilimanjaro range end somewhat abruptly in a high table-land, which is grass-grown and covered in patches with sweet-smelling acacias. This undulating velt-region gradually slopes down until in its lowest parts the waters collect and form the western Njiri marshes, which at some seasons of the year are almost dry. Volcanic hills arise here and there on the plain, from whose summits one can obtain a wide view. One of the most prominent of these hills has a cavity at its summit. It is evidently the crater of an extinct volcano which is filled with water, like the volcanic lakes of my native Eifel district. A thicket begins not far from this hill, and gradually extends until it merges into the forest beyond. The burning sun has dried up all the grass up to the edge of the thicket. There is so little rain here that the poor Xerophites are the only exception that can stand the drought. Only on the inner walls of the steep crater do bushes and shrubs grow, for these are only exposed at midday to the sun’s heat.

Thus a cool moisture pervades this hollow except during the very hottest season. Paths, trodden down by crowds of game, lead to the shining mirror of the little lake. It used to be the haunt of beasts of prey, and the smaller animals would probably seek drinking-places miles distant rather than come to this grim declivity. There is, however, a kind of road leading to the summit of this hill, a very uneven road, wide at first, then gradually narrower and narrower, which had become almost impassable with grass and brushwood when I made my way up. This road was trodden by the cattle herds of the Masai. It may be that rhinoceroses and elephants were the original makers of it before the warlike shepherds began to lead their thirsty cattle to this secluded lake. Be this as it may, my Masai friends assured me that they brought their herds here time out of mind until the rinderpest devastated them.

For weeks I had had natives on the look-out for elephants. They could only tell me, however, of small herds composed of cows and young bulls, and that was not good enough from the point of view of either sportsman or photographer. However, I made several excursions round the Kilepo Hill from my camp, never taking more than a few men with me--it so often happens that one’s followers spoil the chase, perhaps quite frustrate it. This is well known to natives and experienced elephant-hunters.

I soon became familiar with the district and its vegetation. For hours I followed paths which led through thick undergrowth, and I had some unpleasant encounters with rhinoceroses. I knew well that the neighbourhood of the hills, with its tall impenetrable growth, was a most likely one for astute and cautious bull-elephants to haunt.

Hunting elephants in this fashion, day after day, with only a few followers, is a delightful experience. It happens, perhaps, that one has to pass the night in the forest under the free vault of heaven, with the branches of a huge tree as shelter. The faint glow of the camp-fire fades and flickers, producing weird effects in the network of the foliage. How quickly one falls victim to atavistic terrors of the night! Terrors of what? Of the “pepo ya miti,” the spirit of the woods, or of some other mysterious sprite? No, of wild animals--the same kind of fear that little children have in the dark of something unknown, dangerous and threatening. My followers betake themselves to their slumbers with indifference, for they have little concern for probable dangers. But the imaginative European is on the look-out for peril--the thought of it holds and fascinates him.... Somewhere in the distance, perhaps, the heavens are illuminated with a bright light. Far, far away a conflagration is raging, devastating miles upon miles of the vale below. The sky reflects the light, which blazes up now purple, now scarlet! Often it will last for days and nights, nay weeks, whole table-lands being in flames and acting as giant beacons to light up the landscape!... My thoughts would turn towards the bonfires which in Germany of old flashed their message across the land--news, perhaps, of the burial of some great prince.... So, now, it seemed to me that those distant flames told of the last moments of some monarch of the wild.

At last I received good news. A huge bull-elephant had been seen for a few minutes in the early morning hours in the vicinity of the Kilepo Hill. This overjoyed me, for I was quite certain that in a few days now we should meet them above on the hill.

I left my camp to the care of the greater part of my caravan, but sent a good many of my men back into the inhabited districts of the northern Kilimanjaro to get fresh provisions from Useri. I myself went about a day’s journey up Kilepo Hill, accompanied by a few of my men, resolved to get a picture _coûte que coûte_.

It was characteristic of my scouts that they could only give me details about elephants. As often as I asked them about other game I could get nothing out of them, for what were giraffes, buffaloes, and rhinoceroses to them, and what interest could they have in such worthless creatures! The whole mind of the natives has been for many years past directed by us Europeans upon ivory. Native hunters in scantily populated districts dream and think only of “jumbe”--ivory, and always more ivory, as the Esquimaux yearns for seal blubber and oil and the European for gold, gold, gold! In these parts giraffes and rhinoceroses count for nothing in comparison with the elephant--the native thinks no more of them than one of our own mountaineers would think of a rabbit or a hare. Only those who have seen this for themselves can realise how quickly one gets accustomed to the point of view! In the gameless and populous coast districts the appearance of a dwarf antelope or of a bustard counts for a good deal, and holds out promise to the sportsman of other such game--waterbuck, perhaps. I have read in one of the coast newspapers the interesting news that Mr. So and So was fortunate enough to kill a bustard and an antelope. That certainly was quite good luck, for you may search long in populous districts and find nothing. As you penetrate into the wilder districts conditions change rapidly, and after weeks and months of marching in the interior you get accustomed to expecting only the biggest of big game. The other animals become so numerous that the sight of them no longer quickens the pulse.

I have already remarked that elephants are much less cautious by night than by day. The very early morning hours are the best for sighting elephants, before they retire into their forest fastnesses to escape the burning rays of the sun. But as at this time of the year the sun hardly ever penetrated the thick bank of clouds, there was a chance of seeing the elephants at a later hour and in the bush. So every morning either I or one of my scouts was posted on one of the hills--Kilepo especially--to keep a sharp look-out. It needed three hours in the dark and two in the daylight to get up the hill. It was not a pleasant climb. We were always drenched to the skin by the wet grass and bushes, and it was impossible to light a fire to dry ourselves, for the animals would certainly have scented it. We had to stay there in our wet clothes, hour after hour, watching most carefully and making the utmost of the rare moments when the mist rolled away in the valley and enabled us to peer into the thickets. It may seem surprising that we should have found so much difficulty in sighting the elephants, but one must remember that they emerge from their mud-baths with a coating that harmonises perfectly with the tree-trunks and the general environment, and are therefore hard to descry. Besides, the conditions of light in the tropics are very different from what we are accustomed to in our own northern clime, and are very deceptive.

When fortune was kind I could just catch a glimpse during a brief spell of sunshine of a gigantic elephant’s form in the deep valley beneath. But only for a few instants. The next moment there was nothing to be seen save long vistas of damp green plants and trees. The deep rain-channels stood out clear and small in the landscape from where I stood. The mightiest trees looked like bushes; the hundred-feet-high trunks of decayed trees which stood up out of the undergrowth here and there looked like small stakes. In the ever-changing light one loses all sense of the vastness of things and distances.

For once the mist rolls off rapidly; a gust of wind drives away the clouds. The sun breaks through. Look! there is a whole herd of elephants below us in the valley! But in another second the impenetrable forest of trees screens them from my camera. At last they become clearly visible again, and I manage to photograph two cow-elephants in the distance. The sun vanishes again now, and an hour later I have at last the whole herd clearly before me in the hollow. How the little calves cling to their mothers! How quietly the massive beasts move about, now disappearing into the gullies, now reappearing and climbing up the hillside with a sureness of foot that makes them seem more like automatons than animals. Every now and again the ruddy earth-coloured backs emerge from the mass of foliage. A wonderful and moving picture! For I know full well that the gigantic mothers are caring for their children and protecting them from the human fiend who seeks to destroy them with pitfalls, poisoned arrows, or death-dealing guns. How cautiously they all move, scenting the wind with uplifted trunks, and keeping a look-out for pitfalls! Every movement shows careful foresight; the gigantic old leaders have evidently been through some dire experiences.

Suddenly a warning cry rings out. Immediately the whole herd disappears noiselessly into the higher rain-channels of the hill--the “Subugo woods” of the Wandorobo hunters.

* * * * *

Had the elephants not got these places of refuge to fly to they would have died out long ago! This is the only means by which they are still able to exist in Africa. I feel how difficult it is to depict accurately the constant warfare that is going on between man and beast, and can only give others a vague idea of what it is like. Many secrets of the life and fate and the speedy annihilation of the African elephants will sink into the grave with the last commercial elephant-hunters. And once again civilisation will have done away with an entire species in the course of a single century. The question as to how far this was necessary will provide ample material for pamphlets and discussions in times to come.

When one knows the “subugo,” however, one understands how it has been possible for elephants in South Africa to have held out so long in the Knysna and Zitzikama forests until European hunters began to go after them with rifles in expert fashion. Fritsch visited the Knysna forests in 1863. “It is easy,” he says, “to understand how elephants have managed to remain in their forests for weeks together before one of their number has fallen, even when hundreds of men have been after them. There are spots in these forests--regular islands completely surrounded by water--where they take refuge, and where no one can get at them.”

Of course, Fritsch speaks of a time when the art of shooting was in its infancy. One must not forget that nowadays ruthless marksmen will reach the mighty beasts even in these islands of refuge--marksmen who shoot at a venture with small-calibre rifles, and who find the dead elephant later somewhere in the neighbourhood, with vultures congregated round the corpse.[10]

* * * * *

Now perhaps I may have to wait in vain for hours, days, and even weeks! Some mornings there is absolutely nothing to be seen--the animals have gone down to the lake to drink, or have taken refuge in one of the little morasses at the foot of the hill. Judging by their nocturnal wanderings it seems as if they must have other accessible drinking-places in the vicinity. A search for these places, however, is not to be thought of. If I were to penetrate to these haunts they would immediately note my footsteps and take to flight for months, perhaps, putting miles between themselves and their would-be photographer.

For to-day, at any rate, all is over. The sun only breaks through the heavy masses of cloud for a few minutes at a time, and great sombre palls of mist hang over the forests, constantly changing from one shape to another.

To obtain a picture by means of the telephoto-lens did not seem at all feasible. But a photo of bull-elephants and giraffes together!--so long as there was the faintest chance of it I would not lose heart. It was not easy, but I _must_ succeed! So, wet through and perishing with cold, I wandered every morning through the tall grass to the top of the hill and waited and waited....