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Updated: June 21, 2025
We decided upon encamping at a spot known to the Arabs as Delladilla; this was the forest upon the margin of the river where I had first shot the bull elephant, when the aggageers fought with him upon foot.
His was the dangerous post to ride close to the head of the infuriated animal and provoke the charge, and then to lead the elephant in pursuit, while the aggageers attacked it from behind; it was in the performance of this duty that he had met with the accident, as his horse had fallen over some hidden obstacle, and was immediately caught.
The aggageers were all scattered; Mahomet No. 2 was knocked over by a rhinoceros; all the men were sprawling upon the rocks with their guns, and the party was entirely discomfited.
The horses of the aggageers had, moreover, been lamed by reckless riding, and Abou Do coolly proposed that I should lend them horses. Having a long journey before me, I refused, and they became discontented. It was time to part, and I ordered him and his people to return to Geera.
The aggageers gazed with dismay at their departed prize, and, with superstitious fear, they remounted their horses without uttering a word, and rode away; they attributed the sudden death of the animal to the effect of my "evil eye." We turned towards our camp.
As there were no guns, two of the aggageers, utterly reckless of consequences, resolved to ride through the narrow passages formed by the large game, and to take their chance with the elephant, sword in hand.
The aggageers feared nothing, and if the Base had been legions of demons they would have faced them, sword in hand, with the greatest pleasure.
Suspended most carefully upon one side of the camel, in a network of ropes, was a fine young rhinoceros which they had caught, having hunted the mother until she forsook the calf. Johann Schmidt had offered forty dollars for any young animal of this species, for the Italian menageries, therefore to the aggageers this was a prize of great value.
The old Abou Do being resolved upon work, had divested himself of his tope or toga before starting, according to the general custom of the aggageers, who usually wear a simple piece of leather wound round the loins when hunting, but, I believe in respect for our party, they had provided themselves with a garment resembling bathing drawers, such as are worn in France, Germany, and other civilized countries; but the old Abou Do, like the English, had resisted any such innovation, and he accordingly appeared with nothing on but his harpoon; and a more superb old Neptune I never beheld.
My whole life had been passed in wild sports from early manhood, and I had imagined that I understood as much as most people of this subject; but here were men who, without the aid of the best rifles and deadly projectiles, went straight at their game, and faced the lion in his den with shield and sabre. There is a freemasonry among hunters, and my heart was drawn towards these aggageers.
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