The Land of Footprints [82]
us inland again. We stepped very slowly, very alertly, our ears cocked for the faintest sound, our eyes roving. Generally, of course, the creatures of the jungle saw us first. We became aware of them by a crash or a rustling or a scamper. Then we stood stock listening with all our ears for some sound distinguishing to the species. Thus I came to recognize the queer barking note of the bushbuck, for example, and to realize how profane and vulgar that and the beautiful creature, the impalla, can be when he forgets himself. As for the rhinoceros, he does not care how much noise he makes, nor how badly he scares you.
Personally, I liked very well to circle out in the more open country until about three o'clock, then to enter the river jungle and work my way slowly back toward camp. At that time of day the shadows were lengthening, the birds and animals were beginning to stir about. In the cooling nether world of shadow we slipped silently from thicket to thicket, from tree to tree; and the jungle people fled from us, or withdrew, or gazed curiously, or cursed us as their dispositions varied.
While thus returning one evening I saw my first colobus. He was swinging rapidly from one tree to another, his long black and white fur shining against the sun. I wanted him very much, and promptly let drive at him with the 405 Winchester. I always carried this heavier weapon in the dense jungle. Of course I missed him, but the roar of the shot so surprised him that he came to a stand. Memba Sasa passed me the Springfield, and I managed to get him in the head. At the shot another flashed into view, high up in the top of a tree. Again I aimed and fired. The beast let go and fell like a plummet. "Good shot," said I to myself. Fifty feet down the colobus seized a limb and went skipping away through the branches as lively as ever. In a moment he stopped to look back, and by good luck I landed him through the body. When we retrieved him we found that the first shot had not hit him at all!
At the time I thought he must have been frightened into falling; but many subsequent experiences showed me that this sheer let-go-all-holds drop is characteristic of the colobus and his mode of progression. He rarely, as far as my observation goes, leaps out and across as do the ordinary monkeys, but prefers to progress by a series of slanting ascents followed by breath-taking straight drops to lower levels. When closely pressed from beneath, he will go as high as he can, and will then conceal himself in the thick leaves.
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
Personally, I liked very well to circle out in the more open country until about three o'clock, then to enter the river jungle and work my way slowly back toward camp. At that time of day the shadows were lengthening, the birds and animals were beginning to stir about. In the cooling nether world of shadow we slipped silently from thicket to thicket, from tree to tree; and the jungle people fled from us, or withdrew, or gazed curiously, or cursed us as their dispositions varied.
While thus returning one evening I saw my first colobus. He was swinging rapidly from one tree to another, his long black and white fur shining against the sun. I wanted him very much, and promptly let drive at him with the 405 Winchester. I always carried this heavier weapon in the dense jungle. Of course I missed him, but the roar of the shot so surprised him that he came to a stand. Memba Sasa passed me the Springfield, and I managed to get him in the head. At the shot another flashed into view, high up in the top of a tree. Again I aimed and fired. The beast let go and fell like a plummet. "Good shot," said I to myself. Fifty feet down the colobus seized a limb and went skipping away through the branches as lively as ever. In a moment he stopped to look back, and by good luck I landed him through the body. When we retrieved him we found that the first shot had not hit him at all!
At the time I thought he must have been frightened into falling; but many subsequent experiences showed me that this sheer let-go-all-holds drop is characteristic of the colobus and his mode of progression. He rarely, as far as my observation goes, leaps out and across as do the ordinary monkeys, but prefers to progress by a series of slanting ascents followed by breath-taking straight drops to lower levels. When closely pressed from beneath, he will go as high as he can, and will then conceal himself in the thick leaves.
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