Literary Outdoors

[john]

I thought it might be fun to share some written stuff about hunting. Here's one about lion hunting:

"Now why would anyone want to shoot a lion? Good question. He is not much of a trophy, and I am told he is not good to eat. He is no longer the actual hazard to human life that he has been throughout the ages, though that element has not entirely disappeared. Lions do kill and eat people with fair regularity and more frequently now than fifty years ago due to the proliferation of bush wars in their habitat. Such wars are apt to leave the forest cluttered with dead or dying soldiers, and night security posts place troops out there on the line where the lion has every advantage. Nevertheless one does not now set forth to shoot a lion because of the fear that if he does not the lion will eat him. He does not often shoot lions to protect his stock, because in those parts of Africa where stock-raising is successful the lions have gone the way of all things which interfere with the march of man. I believe that one pursues the lion because of the legend. The lion is king. He is strong and terrible. His roar proclaims him, and makes even rifle-wielding man feel humble. His arrogance is intimidating, and his courage is such that even in the space age an extraordinarily brave man is referred to as "lion hearted." He is not cute, and he is not a friend. He is fearfully savage among his own kind as well as to his prey. He is one of God's mightiest killing machines, and he constitutes a noble adversary. Even in our current blas? era the killing of a full-grown, wild lion by fair means, on the ground, is an event to quicken the heart and raise the spirit. The elephant is majestic, the buffalo is grim, the leopard is sinister, but only the lion rates champagne."

--Jeff Cooper, Lion​

 

[Eric N.]

Sounds about the same as people fishing for sharks. I've always been the hunt it to eat it type person. But, I can see the allure of sport hunting. I wouldn't mind having a huge polar bear mounted in my living room or a white tiger. Wonder what roasted leg of Lion taste like.. Little garlic, wrap it in some bacon, and slow cook it.. Hmm, might not be that bad.. I don't see me doing it though.. Well, the tiger anyways... I'm having a hard enough time just trying to get money to go to Moab much less a trip to Africa for a Lion hunt.

 

[john]

"It's hard to believe they were ever tyros. Most of them were aristocratic Englishmen and Germans, virile-looking, steady-nerved, seemingly fearless, and rich, with the outward polish that riches give. They shot coolly and with deadly aim. They appeared to be natural leaders and women doted on their quiet power. I do not know why so many happened to be handsome, having fine, bony, imperturbable faces, and tall, lean figures.

"Almost invariably they were muscular, good-looking fellows, who smoked pipes, drank vast quantities of gin without apparent effect, dressed well, and impressed Americans. They gave their quarry every sporting chance. They did not kill wantonly like some 'foreign rotters' and were careful not to violate game laws. Their seeming indifference to danger was either real or the most convincing pose I have ever seen. The more difficult the chase, the better they liked it. They enjoyed pitting their prowess as trackers and stalkers against wily and dangerous game.

"They took so readily to big game hunting and remained so amazingly cool, it seemed as if this was their natural calling. Unless they were consummate actors, I do not believe they were very civilized in one sense of the term. I think their riches and high station in a feudalistic society had saved them from the strains that accelerate imagination and that both bedevil and develop the psyches of less secure people. I think that they were, and still are, highly polished Cro-Magnon men. They have never had sufficient social experience of the soul-trying kind to allow them to emerge from that pleasantly primitive condition."

Edison Marshall, Shikar and Safari​

 

[john]

"'I speak of Africa and golden joys'; the joy of wandering through the lonely lands; the joy of hunting the mighty and terrible lords of the wilderness, the cunning, the wary, and the grim.

"In these greatest of the world's great hunting-grounds there are mountain peaks whose snows are dazzling under the equatorial sun; swamps where the slime oozes and bubbles and festers in the steaming heat; lakes like seas; skies that burn above deserts where the iron desolation is shrouded from view by the wavering mockery of the mirage; vast grassy plains where palms and thorn-trees fringe the swindling streams; mighty rivers rushing out of the heart of the continent through the sadness of endless marshes; forests of gorgeous beauty, where death broods in the dark and silent depths.

"There are regions as healthy as the northland; and other regions, radiant with bright-hued flowers, birds and butterflies, odorous with sweet and heavy scents, but treacherous in their beauty, and sinister to human life. On the land and in the water there are dread brutes that feed on the flesh of man; and among the lower things, that crawl, and fly, and sting, and bite, he finds swarming foes far more evil and deadly than any beast or reptile; foes that kill his crops and his cattle, foes before which he himself perishes in his hundreds of thousands.

"'The dark-skinned races that live in the land vary widely. Some are warlike, cattle-owning nomads; some till the soil and live in thatched huts shaped like beehives; some are fisherfolk, some are ape-like naked savages, who dwell in the woods and prey on creatures not much wilder or lower than themselves.

"The land teems with beasts of the chase, infinite in number and incredible in variety. It holds the fiercest beasts of ravin, and the fleetest and most timid of those beings that live in undying fear of talon and fang. It holds the largest and the smallest of hoofed animals. It holds the mightiest that tread the earth or swim in its rivers; it also holds distant kinsfolk of these same creatures, no bigger than woodchucks, which dwell in crannies of the rocks, and in the tree tops. There are antelope smaller than hares, and antelope larger than oxen. There are creatures which are the embodiments of grace; and others whose huge ungainliness is like that of a shape in a nightmare. The plains are alive with droves of strange and beautiful animals whose like is not known elsewhere; and with others even stranger that show both in form and temper something of the fantastic and the grotesque. It is a never-ending pleasure to gaze at the great herds of buck as they move to and fro in their myriads; as they stand for their noontide rest in the quivering heat haze; as the long files come down to drink at the watering-places; as they feed and fight and rest and make love.

"The hunter who wanders through these lands sees sights which ever afterward remain fixed in his mind. He sees the monstrous river-horse snorting and plunging beside the boat; the giraffe looking over the tree tops at the nearing horseman, the ostrich fleeing at the speed that none may rival; the snarling leopard and coiled python, with their lethal beauty; the zebras, barking in the moonlight, as the laden caravan passes on its night march through a thirsty land. In after years there shall come to him the memories of the lion's charge; of the gray bulk of the elephant, close at hand in the sombre woodland; of the buffalo, his sullen eyes glowering from under his helmet of horn; of the rhinoceros, truculent and stupid, standing in the bright sunlight on the empty plain.

"These things can be told. But there are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm. There is delight in the hardy life of the open, in long rides rifle in hand, in the thrill of the fight with dangerous game. Apart from this, yet mingled with it, is the strong attraction of the silent places, of the large tropic moons, and the splendor of sunrise and sunset in the wide waste spaces of the earth, unworn of man, and changed only by the slow change of the ages through time everlasting."

Theodore Roosevelt, African Game Trails​

 

[Eric N.]

You have a stack of expedition type books that you are reading after work there John?

 

[john]

You love it.

 

[Eric N.]

Ya, I do like a good tale. Certainly makes for better reading then some of the other post around here..

 

[john]

"For many environmentalists, protecting animals is a moral imperative, but for some hunters it is also sensual. Frequently, at life's end, as they approach what Teddy Roosevelt called 'the rifle pits', the intensity of their memory turns to nature. Often they come to regret, as Roosevelt sometimes did, their own excessive shooting. When Roosevelt declined an easy second campaign for the presidency, and instead determined to go on safari, he was expressly conscious that time was limited, that the longer he delayed and the less young and active he was, the less close to nature he would be in the field. As he had said earlier, 'I am fond of politics, but fonder still of a little big-game hunting.'

"The President planned his safari with loving care, using Frederick Selous and Edward North Buxton as his principal advisers. To make the safari a success, he deliberately used foresight and planning as substitutes for the lost physical prowess of his youth. Unable to get about well himself, as he explained in a letter to Selous, he brought his twenty-year-old son Kermit to replace him in the hard chases. After a twelve-year correspondence with Selous, he knew that the old hunter would understand his requirements, but he was disturbed when Selous and Buxton disagreed on a key point.

"Buxton, experienced with Somali headmen, recommended that Roosevelt 'leave the Cook tourist element behind and trust to the native', hiring a 'black shikari' to undertake the day-to-day management of the safari. Selous, taking offence, scarcely a Cook tourist himself, disagreed. He knew that the huge safari would employ men of various tribes and would pass through different regions as it made its way north from Nairobi through Uganda to the Nile. Like many white hunters, Selous apparently thought that African hunters can be incomparable on their own terrain, but that they are less adaptable elsewhere. Accordingly, looking for men with a broad knowledge of Africa, he recommended Kenya's two most experienced professional hunters, R.J. Cuninghame and William Judd. The President took Selous's advice, and Cuninghame prepared to direct the expedition, which he organized with the help of Nairobi's premier safari outfitter, Newland & Tarlton.

"Lord Cranworth, a director of N & T and a distinguished Kenya pioneer, who came out to the colony in 1906 for sport and profit, described the period from 1908 to 1914 as 'the palmy days of big-game shooting'. Newland & Tarlton put the safari together, and R.J. Cuninghame won high marks from his demanding client. Some suggest that Cuninghame was the model for the illustrations of Haggard's Allan Quartermain. Still others believe that the character Quartermain was based on Alan Black, an old hunter famous for leaving no trace whatever when he left camp, breaking even his wooden pipe matches into tiny fragments. But Cranworth, who knew them all, concludes that 'it was in fact that splendid hunter, Selous'.

"Exhaustive preparations for Roosevelt's safari proceeded throughout 1908 and 1909 in Washington, London and Nairobi. The President enjoyed the work, fussing over the equipment, obsessive about each detail of his weapons. He invited African experts to the White House, notably the American hunter-photographer Carl Akeley, who once strangled a wounded leopard with his hands. Roosevelt had already lunched with Rider Haggard in Washington in 1905, and was to correspond with the writer after his return from Africa. He was proud to welcome the celebrated Colonel J.H. Patterson, the English engineer who killed the man-eating lions that feasted on the Indian railway coolies at Tsavo as the railhead moved west from Mombasa. Altogether perhaps twenty-eight Indians and a hundred Africans were killed by lion as they laboured to build the Uganda Railway across Kenya to Uganda. For a time in 1898 all work stopped until the man-eaters were destroyed.

"The introduction that Selous wrote for Patterson's The Man-Eaters of Tsavo authenticated the details of that incredible story. Roosevelt had a boyish interest in the fastidious way the lions ate their kills. First their abrasive tongues licked the skin off their victims. They they sucked the blood from the bodies before starting to eat them, feet first. On one occasion, the lions were driven off before they got to the coolie's head, which was sent back to the railhead camp for identification. The two colonels had much to discuss at the White House, swapping hunting tales and discussing weapons late into the night.

"As his light rifle, Roosevelt selected for African use his favourite thirty-calibre, bolt-action Springfield Sporter, custom made and adapted from the Springfield military rifle that normally carried a bayonet below the barrel, and specially mounted with a flattened Rocky Mountain Buckhorn sight. For heavier work he ordered a pair of the western classic, the Model 1895, lever-action .405 Winchester. When the makers failed to satisfy the President's specifications, Roosevelt angrily returned the rifles, outraged that the narrow notch sight was 'the poorest rear sight ever used for game . . . It was entirely useless to send them out to me in such shape.'

"Finally Winchester returned the perfected rifles, and the President hurried to the basement to test-fire them on his White House firing range. For his old campaign in Cuba, he had been equally fastidious, equipping his Rough Riders with the latest military rifle, the Krag bolt-action carbine. Roosevelt's concern about gunsights was partly provoked by his bad eyesight, a problem aggravated by a haemorrhage of the retina of his left eye, a boxing injury suffered in the White House in 1904. Although he kept it secret, and misled people by wearing ordinary spectacles, by 1908 the President had no sight whatever in his left eye.

"Despite his patriotic preference for American weapons, Roosevelt delighted in his heaviest rifle, possibly the finest rifle ever made, a Royal grade Holland & Holland, double barrel .500/450 Nitro Express. Never too busy for such refinements, the President himself drew the design for the gunsight on his White House notepaper. Intended to stop the heaviest charging game, this rifle was commissioned as a present for Roosevelt by fifty-five English naturalists and sportsmen. Given to him to honour his work in establishing public parks and forests in the United States, 'in recognition of his service on behalf of the preservation of species', the rifle's donors included Buxton, Lord Curzon, Lord Lugard and Selous. Nearly eighty years later, firing this magnificent double rifle while on safari [with T.R.III and T.R.IV] near the Ruvu River in Tanzania in 1986, I found it still in perfect operating condition."

Bartle Bull, Safari: A Chronicle of Adventure​

 

[Str0ud]

Great stuff John.

 

[Str0ud]

"We bounced along a rutted track bordering the Kanderi Swamp and the Voi River, hornbills flying past with plaintive cries. We found a place where the undergrowth thinned, affording us a good view. Peyton played the hyena tape, and as the hideous wails echoed across the landscape, we scanned with binoculars.



?Oh my God!? Peyton said suddenly. In the same instant came the shrill trumpets of elephants angered by the hyena cries. Turning to look, I saw nine of them, charging out of the scrub to our right: three calves and two adolescents behind a phalanx of four females, coming on at a stiff-legged run, gray hides reddened by Tsavo?s lateritic dust, ears flapping like unsheeted sails in a gale, trunks raised, tusks glinting in the early light.



"They were a hundred yards away at most, a distance they halved in about two seconds, which was when the matriarch ceased trumpeting and lowered her head?a signal that the threat displays were over. This was the real thing. She came straight for us with a terrible singleness of purpose. Her tusks could easily pierce the Land Rover?s thin aluminum skin, and with a little help from her friends she could overturn the vehicle and leave it looking like a flattened beer can, with us inside looking like?well, I didn?t care to think about that. With admirable sangfroid, Peyton switched off the tape recorder, started the engine, and took off as fast as the road would allow, meaning not very fast. We hadn?t gone far by the time the matriarch, followed by the rest, thundered through the spot where we?d been parked. Eight of the elephants carried on, but the old girl, with astonishing agility, turned abruptly and chased us down the road, like a traffic cop pursuing a speeder.



"Peyton stepped on the gas. Finally, satisfied that we?d been seen off, the matriarch halted and, with a parting trumpet and final toss of her great head, turned back to rejoin the others. We watched the herd shamble off, now as calm as they?d been enraged?a magisterial procession against an eastern sky going from bright orange to peach to primrose."




Philip Caputo, Maneless In Tsavo

 

[john]

"It was evening now and he had been asleep. The sun was gone behind the hill and there was a shadow all across the plain and the small animals were feeding close to camp; quick dropping heads and switching trails, he watched them keeping well out away from the bush now. The birds no longer waited on the ground. They were all perched heavily in a tree. There were many more of them. His personal boy was sitting by the bed.

"'Memsahib's gone to shoot,' the boy said. 'Does Bwana want?'

"'Nothing.'

"She had gone to kill a piece of meat and, knowing how he liked to watch the game, she had gone well away so she would not disturb this little pocket of the plain that he could see. She was always thoughtful, he thought. On anything she knew about, or had read, or that she had ever heard.

"It was not her fault that when he went to her he was already over. How could a woman know that you meant nothing that you said; that you spoke only from habit and to be comfortable? After he no longer meant what he said, his lies were more successful with women than when he had told them the truth.

"It was not so much that he lied as that there was no truth to tell. He had had his life and it was over and then he went on living it again with different people and more money, with the best of the same places, and some new ones.

"You kept from thinking and it was all marvelous. You were equipped with good insides so that you did not go to pieces that way, the way most of them had, and you made an attitude that you cared nothing for the work you used to do, now that you could no longer do it. But, in yourself, you said that you would write about these people; about the very rich; that you were really not of them but a spy in their country; that you would leave it and write of it and for once it would be written by some one who knew what he was writing of. But he would never do it, because each day of not writing, of comfort, of being that which he despised, dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally, he did no work at all. The people he knew now were all much more comfortable when he did not work. Africa was where he had been happiest in the good time of his life, so he had come out here to start again. They had made this safari with the minimum of comfort. There was no hardship; but there was no luxury and he had thought that he could get back into training that way. That in some way he could work the fat off his soul the way a fighter went into the mountains to work and train in order to burn it out of his body.

"She liked it. She said she loved it. She loved anything that was exciting, that involved a change of scene, where there were new people and where things were pleasant. And he had felt the illusion of returning strength of will to work. Now if this was how it ended, and he knew it was, he must not turn like some snake biting itself because its back was broken. It wasn't this woman's fault. If it had not been she it would have been another. If he lived by a lie he should try to die by it. He heard a shot beyond the hill.

"She shot very well this good, this rich bitch, this kindly caretaker and destroyer of his talent. Nonsense. He had destroyed his talent himself. Why should he blame this woman because she kept him well? He had destroyed his talent by not using it, by betrayals of himself and what he believed in, by drinking so much that he blunted the edge of his perceptions, by laziness, by sloth, and by snobbery, by pride and by prejudice, by hook and by crook. What was this? A catalogue of old books? What was his talent anyway? It was a talent all right but instead of using it, he had traded on it. It was never what he had done, but always what he could do. And he had chosen to make his living with something else instead of a pen or a pencil. It was strange, too, wasn't it, that when he fell in love with another woman, that woman should always have more money than the last one? But when he no longer was in love, when he was only lying, as to this woman, now, who had the most of all, who had all the money there was, who had had a husband and children, who had taken lovers and been dissatisfied with them, and who loved him dearly as a writer, as a man, as a companion and as a proud possession; it was strange that when he did not love her at all and was lying, that he should be able to give her more for her money than when he had really loved.

"We must all be cut out for what we do, he thought. However you make your living is where your talent lies. He had sold vitality, in one form or another, all his life and when your affections are not too involved you give much better value for the money. He had found that out but he would never write that, now, either. No, he would not write that, although it was well worth writing.

"Now she came in sight, walking across the open toward the camp. She was wearing jodphurs and carrying her rifle. The two boys had a Tommie slung and they were coming along behind her. She was still a good-looking woman, he thought, and she had a pleasant body. She had a great talent and appreciation for the bed, she was not pretty, but he liked her face, she read enormously, liked to ride and shoot and, certainly, she drank too much. Her husband had died when she was still a comparatively young woman and for a while she had devoted herself to her two just-grown children, who did not need her and were embarrassed at having her about, to her stable of horses, to books, and to bottles. She liked to read in the evening before dinner and she drank Scotch and soda while she read. By dinner she was fairly drunk and after a bottle of wine at dinner she was usually drunk enough to sleep.

"That was before the lovers. After she had the lovers she did not drink so much because she did not have to be drunk to sleep. But the lovers bored her. She had been married to a man who had never bored her and these people bored her very much.

"Then one of her two children was killed in a plane crash and after that was over she did not want the lovers, and drink being no anaesthetic she had to make another life. Suddenly, she had been acutely frightened of being alone. But she wanted some one that she respected with her.

"It had begun very simply. She liked what he wrote and she had always envied the life he led. She thought he did exactly what he wanted to do. The steps by which she had acquired him and the way in which she had finally fallen in love with him were all part of a regular progression in which she had built herself a new life and he had traded away what remained his of his old life.

"He had traded it for security, for comfort too, there was no denying that, and for what else? He did not know. She would have bought him anything he wanted. He knew that. She was a damned nice woman too. He would as soon be in bed with her as any one; rather with her, because she was richer, because she was very pleasant and appreciative and because she never made scenes. And now this life that she had built again was coming to a term because he had not used iodine two weeks ago when a thorn had scratched his knee as they moved forward trying to photograph a herd of waterbuck standing, their heads up, peering while their nostrils searched the air, their ears spread wide to hear the first noise that would send them rushing into the bush. They had bolted, too, before he got the picture.

"Here she came now.

"He turned his head on the cot to look toward here. 'Hello,' he said.

"'I shot a Tommy ram,' she told him. 'He'll make you good broth and I'll have them mash some potatoes with the Klim. How do you feel?'

"'Much better.'

"'Isn't that lovely? You know I thought perhaps you would. You were sleeping when I left.'

"'I had a good sleep. Did you walk far?'

"'No. Just around behind the hill. I made quite a good shot on the Tommy.'

"'You shoot marvellously, you know.'

"I love it. I've loved Africa. Really. If you're all right it's the most fun that I've ever had. You don't know the fun it's been to shoot with you. I've loved the country.'

"'I love it too.'"

?Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro​

 

[john]

"To some hunters the prize is what is rare?the bongo, the sitatunga, the snow leopard. To others the prize is what is difficult?the chamois, the mountain sheep, the jaguar. To others, however, the prize is what is deadly?the elephant, the lion, the tiger, the giant bear?but most of all the buffalo.

"Danger, like fear, is a subjective concept. No one can say which beast is objectively the 'most dangerous' because what is dangerous is what scares you. Any man who has ever been caught by anything will tell you that whatever caught him is the most dangerous beast. (Very few have been caught twice by different beasts and lived to tell of it.) The animal which takes the most human lives, year after year, is the crocodile, but he is not a game animal at all. The rhinoceros can certainly kill, and has indeed taken his toll of both hunters and bystanders, but the rhinoceros is not essentially frightening because he is too dimwitted to constitute a respectable adversary. The elephant is smart and his power is irresistible. Many experienced hunters deem him the most dangerous. Lions and tigers are terrifying killing machines and their frightening speed adds to their image.

"But for many of us the pride of place must go to Syncerus caffer?the joined-horned infidel. There is something especially frightening about the buffalo. It is a characteristic most often referred to 'vindictiveness.' This word cannot properly be applied to any beast, since vengeance is an exclusively human emotion, yet there is something unnaturally demonic in the rage of the buffalo. If you are caught by an elephant, he will tear you to pieces or fling you aside. If you are caught by a lion or a bear, he will stop savaging you after you are dead. But not so the buffalo. Once a buffalo has acquired the idea that he is being abused, or even threatened, only death will turn him off. His death, not yours. A buffalo may brush aside a man he has not selected, but once he gets to his prime target he does not stop. He hooks and pounds and stamps and, yes, even bites until there is nothing left of his antagonist except shreds. This is not easily explained but it lends to the reputation of the buffalo a glamour which is matched by no other beast.

"When I was a lad I saw a photograph from Africa. It depicted a piece of ground about the size of an average living room, and on this ground only three objects were clearly distinguishable. Two were boots with the stubs of feet protruding. The other was a head, resting upside down showing a blond beard and a stump of spine. The rest of the scene consisted of mush, cords, and tatters. The buffalo had won. This made a lasting impression on me.

"My hunting partner, Dr. Werner Weissenhofer of Austria, was impressed in a different way. He is a surgeon, and at the time he was attached to a famous hospital noted for its expert treatment of injuries to the lower torso. It happened that a German hunter had committed the unforgivable error of turning to run from an enraged buffalo. One horn entered between his buttocks and penetrated to the diaphragm while the beast tossed its head in fury, mangling the abdomen. This was its dying act and the hunter was extricated alive by his companions. He was flown immediately to the hospital, where it took him a year and a half to die?with Werner in attendance. This also made a lasting impression.

"John A. Hunter, the renowned professional from British East Africa, graphically describes the horrific sound of a buffalo pounding?the savage grunts which accompany each stroke of horn, boss or hoof. There is a weird, frightful joy shown here as the beast seems to exult in an ecstasy of destruction.

"This is why the black buffalo is special. That he is also plentiful, prolific, tasty and a magnificent trophy are all extras. What is special about buffalo is deadliness.

"Just how deadly is he? Certainly one stands a greater risk of being struck by lightning, bitten by a venomous snake, or having his parachute fail to open than of being killed by a buffalo. While many hunters have been so killed the chances are statistically small. But odds are not involved here. The odds are far greater that I, for example, will die of a stroke than of a buffalo charge, yet I do not stand in awe of a vascular breakdown but I do stand in awe of the buffalo. That is the difference?a matter of attitude, not statistics. If you are not in awe of the buffalo you cannot enjoy hunting him. One well-known writer who had much experience in the chase asserted that when he was on a buffalo hunt he frequently woke up at night in a cold sweat, anticipating the morrow's adventures. That man obviously got full value out of his buffalo hunting.

"If one is a reasonably good shot, thoroughly instructed in bovine anatomy, wielding a weapon of adequate power, and capable of controlling his nerves in an emergency, his chances of coming to grief in a buffalo encounter are low. The glamour of the occasion, however, is no way diminished by this. It is a big experience. I anticipate it, savor it and emphasize it. I turn the volume all the way up. Rabbit people will say that I make entirely too much of it, but I do not mind that. I have little to do with rabbit people?professionally or recreationally.

"On my own last buffalo hunt I thought long about my emotions at the moment of contact. I prepared myself in advance to note my sensations. Was I to feel fear? Was my mouth to go dry, my hands shake? Memories of moments of stress are notoriously unreliable, but as I recall it I did not feel these things. When I saw the mighty master bull stand forth from the herd, head high and tail lashing, I was truly awed. I marveled at his colossal strength. I knew his unbelievable resistance to gunfire. I was amazed once again by that appalling stare. 'He looked at me as if I owed him money,' as Robert Ruark put it. But before anything incapacitating could occur in my emotional condition my concentration shifted to the task at hand, which was shooting?marksmanship. Selection of firing position was the first consideration. It was instantly decided but I had no choice?the shot had to be taken from offhand. Next I remember focusing intently on the front sight, red against black. Lastly I recall putting every ounce of concentration I possessed upon a gentle pressure on the trigger?the 'surprise break' of the marksman. My preoccupation with these matters of technique was so great as to blank out any possible feeling of apprehension, excitement?or fear. Perhaps, therefore, I did not enjoy the experience to the fullest. Perhaps if I had been frightened into incapacity and the buff had been killed by my companion?perhaps only then would I have got my money's worth. However I do not think so. I believe I got the full charge. I am immensely impressed by the buffalo, and I will hunt him whenever I can, but at the moment of truth my feelings will probably remain concentrated upon the shot.

"Possibly this whole attitude is an affectation?even an obsession. Possibly those of us who love to hunt the buffalo are victims of some sort of mental disease. If so, however, it is a disease we have no desire to cure."

?Jeff Cooper, The Spice of Life​

 

[stu454]

These are great!

I need to dig out Peter Hathaway Capstick's 'Death in the Long Grass'. A great read that I blew through in about two days. Very tense, funny and entertaining.

 

[stu454]

"Anybody who is not at least slightly terrified by the prospect of a man-eating lion dropping by for a late snack is, in my opinion, suffering from soft spots in the head. I have no soft spots. I checked the Jeffrey, shook the panatella-sized cartridges to hear the satisfying rattle of cordite against the cool, brass cases, closed the rifle's action and, sitting on the bed with a cigarette and the bottle of beer, waited to see what would happen.

Perhaps an hour went by, a hell of a long time when you are sitting in the dark wondering if something big and hairy is going to burst through the frail grass walls and grab you. You will likely recall the sensation from your first childhood camping trip. There were the usual bushveldt sounds of insects, the wet swirls of catfish and crocs on the river, the honking of hippos and the sleepy chatter of insomniac baboons in the grove of fever trees over the ridge. Then, somehow, with prehistoric certainty I knew he was there, very close. I could absolutely sense him. The hackles were crawling around on my neck like a nest of maggots, and my palms were slippery cold on the Circassian walnut stock of the rifle. My heart slammed in my ears like Gene Krupa on speed as adrenalin pumped through my system. With my heightened senses, I could now hear the animal padding through the soft dirt outside the hut, looking for a weak point. There was a long pause and I knew he was coming. A low, incredibly sinister rumble welled up through the dark, and the hut shook under a heavy shock. Pieces of dry grass and dust shook down cloudlike from the roof into my hair and eyes. Frantically, I tried to locate the lion, but his roars drowned everything out, asolid vortex of impossible sound saturating the hut. Then, against the eighteen-inch open strip that ran under the flat roof for ventilation, a dark lump was silhouetted against the slightly lighter sky. It was the lion's head, looking in, and I realized in a flash that he was crouched or lying on the roof, a flimsy network of slender poles and bunched grass. Two big feathers of flame erupted from the muzzles as I raised the double rifle, sighted on the spot where the cat seemed to be, and pressed the triggers. As the thousand grains of lead tore through the roof (happily without setting fire to it with the muzzle blast), there was a tremendous roar that blended with the twin crash of the shots. There followed a scratching, thrashing sound and a thump like a meal sack dropped down an empty elevator shaft. I automatically broke the action and dunked in two fresh rounds from between the fingers of my left hand, the greasy cordite fumes stinging my eyes.'

Peter Hathaway Capstick, 'Death in the Long Grass'

 

[KevinNY]

"...and so if you meet a hunter who has been to Africa, and he tells you what he has seen and done, watch his eyes as he talks. They will see sunrises and sunsets such as you can not imagine, and a land and a way of life that is fast vanishing. And always he will tell you how he plans to go back." David Petzer

 

[john]

Nobody tells a tale quite like Capstick. I love his books. Technical accuracy. Vivid detail. Sense of humor. Capstick has it all.

Great stuff.

 

[stu454]

Yep, Capstick was an outstanding writer.

His tale of unloading both barrels of a side x side shotgun down into a latrene to kill a mamba cracked me up.

"...The trackers must have wondered what bwana was doing blowing up the crapper."

Incredible reads.

 

[john]

"Late on a sunny January afternoon in 1867, England's worst ice-skating tragedy struck at the Ornamental Water in London's Regent's Park. To clear water for the birds, park keepers had broken some ice along the banks. As a boy of fifteen skated across the centre of the lake, cracks splintered sharply through the thawing ice. Five hundred panicked skaters fled desperately back and forth across the cracking surface, unable to reach shore as slabs of ice broke loose, tilting skaters into the water and closing over their heads. Three thousand spectators watched friends and relatives struggle and die before them. A few bystanders entered the water, hauling out bodies and swimmers. Three rescuers were themselves pulled under the ice by drowning men. Others threw oars and branches to frenzied skaters.

"Ignoring the hysteria, the boy stood calmly on his skates, looked carefully about him, and lay down spreadeagled on his dwindling patch of ice. Unnoticed as the winter afternoon darkened, as death and rescue occupied the crowd, the boy planned his route and slowly crawled crab-like from slab to slab, until he reached an island and then hobbled across and skated on unbroken ice to shore. Meanwhile, the first bodies were carried to the nearby Death House of the Marylebone Workhouse. Among the survivors, the worst cases were rushed to the tent of the Royal Humane Society and dipped in a warm bath, three at a time, with their clothes on. Finally, after a week of quarrying the ice, diving and dragging the water with hooks and fishing nets, finding hats, a walking-stick and bodies stiff as trees, the count of the dead reached forty-nine. But Frederick Courtenay Selous, fifteen years old, survived. In time, repeatedly drawing on the same alert instincts during a lifetime of hazard in the bush, he became the greatest of all the white hunters.

?Bartle Bull, Safari: A Chronicle of Adventure​

 

[john]

Here's one of my favorites from Long Grass:


"Silent's low hiss slithered through the dry, noon heat like a cold, thin blade. The old gunbearer stiffened and slowly passed the .375 Magnum back over his shoulder, edging to the side to clear my field of fire. To our front, deep in the bewildering tangles of second-growth mopane, a low, cracking sound could be heard blending with a soft, gurgling undertone. Silent's muddy, malarial eyes probed the grove, then turned on me. 'Njovu,' his lips quietly formed in Chenyanja. 'Elephant.'

"I retreated a few paces, motioning for Antonio, my client, to follow. When we had covered thirty yards, we stopped and I whispered in his ear, using the weird admixture of Italian, Spanish, and English we had developed over the first few days of safari to communicate. In this case, the simple word 'elefante' was sufficient. His eyes widened, staring back into the wood as he wiped the sweat from his forehead and licked his lips. Gripping my arm, he whispered, 'Pedro, for mee ees feerst wahn!'

"I have always wondered what his reaction might have been had I leaned over and confided that, for me, his hairy-chested, smell-like-leather bwana, thees was feerst wahn, too.

"Everybody has to start somewhere. I had never seen a live African elephant in the wild before this day on my first professional safari in Zambia. If this seems a bit inconsistent with the finest traditions of the hunting profession, let me explain that I had come to Africa from South America, where I had been a jaguar hunter, then, before arriving in Zambia, I had been conducting safaris in areas that were not in elephant country. Since I had a slight reputation as a 'cat man,' specializing mostly in lions and leopards, nobody ever dreamed of asking me if I had ever seen an elephant. I had a professional hunter's license, didn't I? Who ever heard of a white hunter who'd never seen an elephant? Had the question come up, the most I could have said truthfully was that I had read a lot on the subject. That's me, the correspondence school bwana. Since this sort of revelation doesn't tend to put the paying clients aquiver with confidence in their intrepid guide, and since nobody had asked me, I didn't volunteer the information. Nothing like on-the-job training to learn a trade, anyway.

"I jerked my chin at Invisible, who padded over and fished out a five-pack of Kynoch nonexpanding, solid-bulleted cartridges for Antonio's magnificent .475 No. 2 Jeffery's double-barreled express rifle. It had, according to my pal, once been owned by a member of Mussolini's cabinet. Antonio had picked it up from the man's estate for a song, although these days such a rifle was worth about as much as a platinum-plated Maserati. He removed the panatella-length soft-point cartridges from the chambers and dunked in a pair of wicked looking blunt-nosed solids, swinging the action shut with the precision of a vintage Chubb safe. Since I always load with solids anyway, I just checked the magazine on the bolt-action Mauser, stuck a couple of hedges against disaster between the fingers of my left hand, and quietly hyperventilated to slow my heart down to 300 beats per minute. Well, I thought airily, let's go look at an elephant.

"As the rest of my safari crew headed back out of harm's way, I could smell the familiar barnyard, zoo-stall odor of big game on the edge of the breeze. Silent motioned for me to give him a cigarette, which I lit. He studied the wafting of the thin, smoky tendril and nodded. It was straight back into our faces. With Antonio gripping the Jeffery's like the true cross, we started into the grove for a reconnaissance of the situation. I can think of things I would rather have been doing.

"Since that day, it has always amazed me how anything as god-awful big as a bull elephant can be so hard to spot in cover. Possibly, it is the optical phenomenon of its very size not offering a recognizble view of the whole animal when the silhouette is broken by even fairly light bush. Elephants, under most close-range hunting conditions, appear as small patches of whatever color dirt they have been dusting or wallowing in. Even when he locates the animal, the hunter faces the problem of determining the size of the ivory, which way the animal is facing, and what portion of the anatomy the patch of hide showing represents. In any case, had something the size of a townhouse not stuck its nose into the air and snapped off an arm-thick branch to strip off its bark and leaves with a sound not unlike driving a Buick through a rotting picket fence, we might have stopped for a rest in the bull's shade. He was just fifteen yards ahead, facing three-quarters away when we picked him out, his left tusk a lovely arc of sap-stained ivory.

"As we stared chunks and pieces of his outline began to fall into place like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The edge of an ear appeared, and then the shadowy lines of flank and back materialized. Beyond him, a slow movement betrayed something else big and gray looming indistinctly. I raised the binoculars and tried to gauge the ivory of each. From the pictures I had seen, the nearest bull was carrying about sixty pounds per tooth, a fair trophy. The second had slightly heavier tusks, although the right one was broken off two feet shorter than its mate. I looked back at the near bull and nodded to Antonio.

"Now, the books I had read never got across how big elephants really are. It may be that the only way to find out for yourself is to walk up to one with a steel and wood toothpick in your shaking hands with the ridiculous intent of doing it harm. You suddenly note all sorts of details you never saw in the zoo: the dark patch from the temple gland, the ragged tatters and holes in the ears, and the strange, pale gray circle around the eye's iris set between impossibly thick lashes. The burbling sound is still heard, which, according to all of those books, is just fine. If it stops, prepare to repel boarders. As the ammonia of his urine slaps you in the face, like a public men's room in Atlanta in August, you recall that this digestive sound is not what it appears to be, but just a low, communicative device elephants use to stay in touch in heavy cover.

"Swell. So what's next? You have the same feel of rising panic as realizing your fly is open while lecturing to your wife's garden club. You can't simply stand there and tell Antonio to shoot him in the arse. Just not done. Completely un-pukka. Think now. If you try to shunt your shivering carcasses around to the flank for a side brain shot, he'll probably either see you or hear your teeth clacking out the accompaniment to Malaguena. But, you had better think up something pretty quick, chum, because he's too close. Way too close. And the wind may shift or he'll take a look astern, and things may become intensely unpleasant.

"Grabbing $50 worth of Antonio's tailored bush jacket in one fist, you decide to back off a touch for more shooting room. You don't like the way Silent is starting to show too much white around the eye, either. With the casual grace of a landslide, the bull shifts a few feet, opening the angle between you. You freeze. Look at the bloody size of him! He's gained at least four tons and five feet at the shoulder in the past fifteen seconds. You see the great pads of cartilage in his feet expand with his shifted weight until they are bigger than coffee tables. If only you weren't so damned close. Still ruining Antonio's crease, you start to drift back with infinite care, avoiding each dry leaf and branch as if they were the wire trigger prongs of teller mines. You actually manage to cover five big yards before it happens.

"Maybe he has felt the touch of all those eyes on him; perhaps the tiniest rustle of vegetation has alerted him. Whatever. With a trumpet so loud that it reverberates in your stomach, he spins around. It is a microsecond before he picks out your forms with those myopic eyes guided by the slick, metallic slide of the safety catches. The huge, raggedy ears swish open wide and the trunk coils up against the chest, a tensed, spring-steel pile driver, a 500-pound bullwhip neat and ready to lash out with irresistible power. Then, he comes, unbelievably fast for his looming bulk, great clumps of dirt and bush debris exploding from his smashing feet as he eats up the precious yards. You throw up the puny rifle, screeching for Antonio to shoot. The twin slaps of concussion from his muzzle blasts cuff the side of your face and deafen your right ear. A fountain of dirt blows from the ground in front of the elephant's feet, a spurt of dust from a skull crease hangs bright in a shaft of sunlight. You had better do it, and do it now.

"He is less than ten yards away when the ivory bead of the foresight nestles into the vee of the express leaf on your .375. The head, bigger than a Volkswagen, is tossing, the spot for the frontal brain shot shifting. Then, reflex takes over and the Mauser seems to fire by itself. You never hear the flat whiplash of the shot, never feel the slamming recoil. Somebody else is working the bolt automatically, your eyes stuck on the magical, white-edged hole that has just appeared in a puff of dirt in the middle of the forehead?a ridiculously small hole that is now red-rimmed. You never touch off the second round although it is ready, snug and deadly in its chamber as a mamba in its hole.

"The tremendous, gray skull is lifting, pulled backward as the hindquarters collapse and the huge bulk crashes down in the same slow motion as an office building receiving a demolition charge. The thick, wet noise of six tons of blood, bone, and muscle striking earth sounds hollow as he rolls over onto his side, the top, rear leg stretching, stretching, then relaxing. If you are stupid enough to try it, you may take three medium steps forward and touch him with the muzzle of your rifle. But you are too clever for that. You've read too many books. Before the shakes start, you calmly walk around him, sight carefully, and drive another 300 grains of copper-jacketed lead through the nape of his neck?the same spot where the Matadores de Toros stick that nifty little leaf-shaped mercy knife. The elephant doesn't seem to have any objection."

?Peter Hathaway Capstick, Death in the Long Grass​

 

[jimjet]

been there done some of that

hey all
cool reading
ive read most of that stuff as ive been there 5 times.
gotten most of my plains game with bow and rifle.
as a deer hunter my first day in afrika was strange ,, there is so much game you think your at a shootin gallery.
you soon find out after hiking 10 miles its not that easy on foot.
once you step out of LR its a new game.

was in zambia in may 04
started collecting the big 5
got my buff for starters.
stepped on puffadder snake.didnt get me.killed with rock.had skin mounted.

some one above said he wished he could afford to go.
back in 95 i started to plan a bear hunt in canada.
found out it was cheaper to do africa
been going back every few years or so.
i got my leopard licence for 2006.using a bow for leopard.
its the thrill of a life time.
my first day out in afrika nothing..
next day out followed my own footprints ,leopard tracks in my footprints.
had leopard drinking from pool at 4am one day.
this last trip to zambia we ran out of fuel (L.R. faulty fuel gauge) in bush long way from camp,no funnel,
i was looking for something on side of trail to use(at night with flashlight) i found 2 leopards laying down watching me approach.i walked backwards fast.
we stay in RSA as a base camp.its actualy a huge cave ,converted into a beautiful home
close to the boarder with botswana.
i try to go to sci convention yearly with my buds from rsa.they have a booth there yearly.

anyone ever interested i can send some info or photos
its a great trip and can be done reasonably.
forgive the spelling please.
jim