The menageries : quadrupeds, described and drawn from living subjects.

Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The menageries : quadrupeds, described and drawn from living subjects. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    we went up to him; the ball had entered behind the shoulder and reached the heart.” The troop of elephants flee, but their enemy quickly follows. Their course may be now easily traced, for they are terrified and angry. They uproot every thing that impedes their path; branches are strewed every where around; and the large euphorbias are broken like twigs. They at length stop. Their huge backs shew above the bush. The hunters steal on—again fire—again an elephant dies—and again the herd rushes forward. Night comes on. The adventurers light a blazing fire, and sleep in safety, while the elephants and the buffaloes are around them. During the night one of the Hottentots may be heard reciting some tale of danger or superstition in a dull, monotonous voice; and when the story of one is finished, another begins some similar narrative. At the dawn of day they are ready again to start. The pursuit continues, either till the remainder of the herd are destroyed or have escaped—or till the ammunition is exhausted. The party then retrace their ground, with their horses, to carry off the tusks, which they have marked as each animal is killed. There is no difficulty in finding the spots; for a Hottentot, in a country where hill and hollow are equally clothed with jungle, will, in the heat of a fatiguing day, throw his hatchet into a bush, and after weeks return to the same bush, and take it up again *. The chase of the elephant, conducted in this man- ner, is an occasion of extraordinary excitement— but it is also a work of great fatigue and danger. The hardships and terrors of such a life are described by Mr. Rose, in the words of the European hunter whom he accompanied :— * Rose; p. 239.