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Updated: May 7, 2025
I wanted to know what kind of money or trade stuff the hunter carried; what sort of things he had to eat each day; what he wore, and how he got from place to place. Most writers have a way of saying: "We equipped our safari in Nairobi and made seven marches to such and such a place, where we ran into some excellent eland."
The eland and the other antelopes were plentiful, and they were soon joined by parties of the natives, who requested them to shoot the animals for them, which they did in quantities even sufficient to satisfy them.
The wealth of the plains was compelled to yield tribute to our table; eland, grouse and Uganda cob appeared and disappeared as if by magic; the vast storehouses of Europe and America poured their treasures upon our groaning board, and one by one we safely put away succulent lengths of asparagus, cakes and chocolate, wine and olives, pickles and honey, nuts and cheese, plum pudding and coffee, and soup and salad, all in their proper sequence and in sufficient quantities to go round and round.
The eland is one of those antelopes that appear to be independent of water. It is met with upon the desert plains, far from either spring or stream; and it even seems to prefer such situations perhaps from the greater security it finds there though it is also a denizen of the fertile and wooded districts.
Within two hours of Nairobi the sportsman may find twelve or fifteen species, while within the space of four weeks a lucky hunter might secure elephant, lion, rhinoceros, buffalo, eland and hippopotamus. It is hardly likely that he would, but it is quite within the range of possibilities. It all depends upon luck.
It measures full seventeen hands at the shoulder being thus equal in height to a very large horse. A large eland weighs one thousand pounds. It is a heavily formed animal, and an indifferent runner, as a mounted hunter can gallop up to one without effort.
My uncle told me to reserve my fire, in case he should fail to bring the eland down; but as he was a much better shot than I was, I feared that should he miss, I also should fail. Presently I saw him rise from among the grass. Lifting his rifle to his shoulder he fired; the eland gave a bound, but alighting on its feet was scampering off, when I eagerly raised my rifle and pulled the trigger.
He loaded his left barrel then, saw the powder well up, capped it and cut away a strip of the acacia with his knife to see clear, and lying down in volunteer fashion, elbow on ground, drew his bead steadily on an eland who presented him her broadside, her back being turned to the wood.
Being only a poor runner and always very fat, the hunt is usually a short one; and ends in the eland being shot down, skinned, and cut up. There is no great excitement about this chase, except that it is not every day an eland can be started.
The two I had left with him when I went to Loanda were still living, and had been of great use to him in hunting the giraffe and eland, and he was now anxious to have a breed. This, I thought, might be obtained at the Portuguese settlements. All were very much delighted with the donkeys we had brought from Loanda.
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