How not to Hippo on the Luwego

It started with a delegation of trackers at 8pm as we were gathering around the fire before diner on the first night in camp. The camp is on the confluence of the Luwego River and another wide dry sand riverbed, a little south of where the Luwego joins the Mbarangandu River. This is really out there, as wild as it gets anywhere.

We were there to hunt Kiboko (Hippo) and croc primarily. In July the river meanders through sand banks a thousand yards across patched with green grazing. The camp is situated in the shady tree line on the collapsing soil high water bank over looking the broad expanse of the Luwego. The sand banks are scattered with game in the evenings. The sun set was clear with a radiant orange, violet and blue sky. The stacked silver rimed warm glowing clouds colored the rippled flowing river. A Goliath Heron rasped as it stood silhouetted at the waters edge.

The nights are a cacophony of Kiboko, Hyena and Lion. I could only just make out the trackers in the dark. There was a tall chiseled Mkuria who are known for their impertinence. He knew everything already it turned out, and was a mixer from behind the scenes. The two local lads were short and stocky as they often are down in those parts. The younger fellow proved an excellent tracker and hard working. A Maasai who informed me that he is an apprentice professional hunter was wise enough to stay out of the delegation.

After the required greeting away from ears in the dark, the trackers wanted to know; as we were after hippo and where unlikely to find the bull we wanted on the hills, with the river full of croc, reflecting on the death of a fellow tracker already lost to the Luwego crocs while retrieving a hippo only last year, this situation would require added financial incentive should we be so unlucky.

Basically they were preparing for the worst knowing we would probably have to wade or swim in the river to retrieve the hippo. Hippo can be shot in the water, but it is a difficult shot at a small target. Once they are dead they immediately sink, but float to the surface within a couple of hours as the bacteria in their gut continue to ferment the contents and produce gasses. The carcass will then be moved by the current down river until it comes to rest against some log or sand bank. From there it is retrieved by a swimmer who ties a rope to it so that it can be pulled to the bank.

These were all new staff to me and the general impression I had of the camp seamed to indicate they were used to liberal leniency. If they had known me better they would not have approached me in the same way.

A professional hunter is very much a team leader. The team is; all of the staff in camp who are required for all creature comforts and necessities, and the bush team of the driver with trackers and the government game scout. The hunting is, on most safaris, the most important aspect, as if the hunting goes well, the camp can be basic, unless the hunters are accompanied by more delicate or discerning family or friends.

One important part of the team was maneuvering for a large gratuity. I wanted to hit the roof but played it cool. It was nice of them to come out and say it but I mumbled nothing and moved back to my drink, the fire and the regular waiting on Doc and dinner. I was tired and recovering from one dose of malaria, while unknowingly sinking into the next, which hit as I arrived home at the end of the trip.

I could have easily taken one tracker only, but I needed to get to know them all, and they would be needed for hippo. No divide and rule option. We set off early the next morning and had no choice but to try for hippo as Doc wanted the trophy and we needed bait for crock. We only had four days in the area and needed to get on with it.

Bare in mind Hippo are the most deadly of Africa’s big game and out of the water, if you are seen, will often charge. They can cut you in half with one snap. Their twelve trophy tusks are almost entirely for fighting, and hardly ever used feeding. We stalked the river, tense and quiet, through thick dark riverine bush and forest full of hippo trails. These are uniquely wide and often have a ridge of grass running down the middle of the path giving them the appearance of a miniature dual carriage way, as the hippo’s legs are some distance apart. Hippos spend most of the day lounging about in water and commute long distances every night to the nearest green grass to graze. If you are early enough you may catch one on the commute at dawn. Some times you may find them resting on a sandbank in the sun but they will rush headlong into the water at the first sign of danger be it a birds alarm call or the smallest whiff of human.

The Luwego is beautiful, especially at first light. Slightly muddied brown cool water ripples past golden sand banks rimed with patches of shady green pod mahogany, bohemia and fig. At the point we were walking on adrenalin through, the river is only a couple of hundred yards across and the bank we were creeping along rises gently from the water. It is backed by a vlei that would become part of the river in flood. This made for difficult access without being noticed by the Egyptian geese, herons, hadida ibis, waterbuck or impala ever-present on the green fringe of the still wet vlei.

We disturbed baboon, banded mongoose and crested guinea fowl in the thick riverine forest. All of whom needed to be pushed away without their giving the full alarm. Each time we would freeze when we saw or heard them scuttling through the autumn leaves on the ground. Then as they got too close I would make small movements so they were aware of a presence but not frightened into shrieking with alarm. The baboons did set of noisily and so we rested and waited for calm to return to the surrounds. Both the guinea fowl and banded mongoose were only mildly disturbed and moved off making indignant little clucks or chuckles respectively. This is work of unusual intensity, as the entire body as at the apex of alertness, every little muscle is held in readiness as you stalk. All five of us tried not to make a sound.

We did not find a bull hippo out and I reluctantly prepared to take a bull in the water from one of the pods nearby. The difficulty in retrieving the beast is only half of it, more difficult still is selecting a bull and ensuring the shooter knows which one it is in a constantly moving pod of tightly packed hippo heads that all look much the same. The angle must be perfect and the bull needs to raise his head a bit to expose the hollow under his ear for the side shot. An alternative is between the eyes, but this is the small side of the brain and a smaller target. Not a good option at the distance and angle Doc would need to shoot.

We stalked through the cover and set up for the shot with patients and careful gesticulating and intense whispering. Finally now at mid-morning all was in place and Doc fired through the cover. He missed that first shot as the hippo moved as he fired. The bullet ricocheted off the water and smacked into the cliff behind.

The hippo erupted into motion churning the water in a frantic effort to find us and assume a defensive formation. They did not move far and we were able to approach them again.

The opposite bank at of the Luwego is a vertical cliff at that point, rising twenty foot from the water, which slows into a gentle swirling pool at its curved base. A watery fifteen foot deep cave undercuts the cliff which curls out into the water pushing the flow away to cut into the sandbank opposite. On the up-stream side of the mouth of the cave a rock ledge, just large enough to accommodate a resting beached hippo, slopes gently out into the water. The red sand left on it by the receding river was catching the mid morning sun.

The hippo moved up stream and halfway into the river between the cliff and a large sand bank. Now we had to throw all caution to the wind and stride out onto the sand in full view of the pod. I was on guard as they were a little pissed and I was looking out for a charge. None came but the body language was certainly antagonistic. Unbelievably the pod stood there ground and allowed us to within seventy yards.

There were two mature bulls with the pod but only one was a trophy. He now showed his true colors as he wisely moved to the back behind the cows with their young. We would get a shot and with Doc’s scoped .500/.416 well sighted it should be no problem if he gave us a target. We set up the sticks for the Doc and I carefully pointed out the bull, coaching all the time as to where he was and exactly what he was doing. Finally he lifted his head clear, side on. Perfect, but no shot came until he had started to turn. I never did find out exactly where that built struck but as the confusion erupted again I had seen enough to be concerned about it.

Anybody who has witnessed the full power and mass of an enraged pod of hippo as it erupts from sleepy cumbersome immobile solid lumps in the water to froth and foam and spray, will never forget it. Imprinted in your minds eye forever will remain the overwhelming power of an instant. Each adult, three tons, that appears so lazy when resting, can push up a bow wave a foot high. They snort very loudly and the air that bursting from their noses billows up a plume of spray eight feet above them.

Blood and water flowed from the target bull’s nose. I was looking for the charge again. Again none came, but we were trying hard to keep tabs on the bull in the confusion. He moved away towards the cliff and cave. In desperation as Doc tried to find him in the scope I pulled off three shots as he moved through the water with my open sighted Winchester .416. All missed by a diminishing fraction, the last whistling through the neck skin. All skipped of the river just short, as he moved fast and low in the water, and smacked into the rocks now only two yards behind him.

The hippo made the cave and disappeared into the gloom. I could just make out the top of his head under the overhanging rock. Doc could just make him out to and we moved the shooting sticks. After careful discussion Doc squeezed off the shot aiming with the angle just below the right eye. The Krighoff roared and the .500/.416 solid slammed home. An incredible shot. The hippo’s head dropped like a stone before the echo died. Now I was wandering had we done the right thing? The animal was wounded and as always the quicker it is finished the less the suffering. However the carcass, now out of sight, was in a cave across a crocodile infested river. Could I have waited for the hippo to move back out into the river? Would it have?

I asked the trackers about the cave and was informed that the water there was very deep. Perhaps twenty feet and that cave was also the home of all the big croc of the Luwego. That cave was beginning to look rather menacing.

There was no alternative but to wait out the hour and a half or so that the carcass would take to rise to the surface and hope it would drift with the current into shallower water down stream.

I studied the cave with growing concern as to me it looked like the carcass could lodge up against the roof of the cave and the current that seamed to split and circle into the cave could hold it there indefinitely.

While I stared into the cave I noticed a rounded rock just breaking the surface in the cave. I was sure it was the hippo’s belly and a long discussion ensued punctuated by swapping various magnifications of Swarofski binoculars.

I chose this time to venture the idea that some of us could try to forge the river and extract the three ton trophy from its lodgings. No, no, no, no, not a good plan, suicidal in fact. Hundreds of reasons came up. It was far more sensible to simply wait for crocs to dislodge the carcass when they feed that night then we would find it washed up downstream the next morning………

I was not convinced and spent an age trying to see any movement of the rock, that I was sure was the hippo, in order to see if it was buoyant yet. I could not be sure but it seemed to be bobbing about slightly. There were naturally still about twenty hippos that had no intention of budging from the deeper water in front of the cave.

The rock was the hippo, we finally all agreed, but was it moving? OK this was it. Plan A; we fire a few rounds into the water near the hippo hoping that either they move away or their stirrings will send a wave large enough into the cave to dislodge the carcass. Plan B; if that didn’t work we would cross the river and climb down the cliff in to the cave and try to swim over from the little ledge at the cave entrance and get a rope onto it before the crocs could eat us. It was after all suicidal and so could not ask anybody else to try. One small set back, we have no rope, none even in camp. I sent the pick-up back to camp to collect as much sisal twine as they could and then started on Doc, trying everything to have him agree to stay behind and guard our backs. This took some doing, seriously firm doing.

Doc started firing a few rounds near to the hippo pod. They created quite a commotion but they refused to move away and the lump in the cave didn’t budge.

I had scouted out the river and the best crossing appeared to be a little way up stream. Four trackers and I striped down to our underwear and after firing a couple of rounds into the water to scare away any lurking crocs waded out into the river. The trackers had said that the water would be deep in places and we may have to swim, which would be difficult carrying my boots and rifle, but as it turned out I had picked a good spot and the deepest water was only just above my knees.

Doc was pissed at my refusing to let him come across with us but he kept guard from the bank looking for and danger from hippo or croc. Once we had walked back down the opposite bank and up along the cliff we were overlooking the hippo pod and could gather stones and harass them into giving way. The trackers accuracy was on display as every time a snout broke the surface a stone would strike within inches. They were stubborn but eventually split half the pod moving off upstream and the rest down stream. They didn’t go far, but it was enough.

We then cut down two medium sized trees and haled them over to the cliff and slid them over maneuvering them so that we could use them as a ladder to climb down onto the ledge at the caves mouth. We had to make thirty foot ropes by joining ten strands of the twine together. This we attached to a tree above the cliff. This was our safety line.

Three of us climbed down onto the ledge with my rifle, keeping an eye on the agitated Kiboko nearby. Now with all the hype over the cave I would need to swim over to the carcass. I fired one more shot into the cave to scare off any off the massive crocs reputed to live in there. I have never been brave about water when I can’t see the bottom, so my mouth was dry as a waded in. The water only came up to my kidneys! I had the rope so that I could be haled back to the ledge and wouldn’t be washed along the cliff. What an anti climax and relief.

It was strange maneuvering this huge beast, remembering all of the scare stories of dead animals jumping to life, and crocs in the back of the mind. The cold skin was firm and leathery soft. Its size daunting.

We tied the strengthened twine to the trophy and set off back to the other side wading through deep water with hippo on either side of us staring menacingly. It was as I was halfway across the river with my boots in on hand and rifle in the other that I remembered a corny advert for boots that has an almost identical picture of the Hulk Hogan look-alike professional hunter John Sharp crossing a river in the same way. And then I remembered that on this occasion Patrick was filming it all. How embarrassing to be caught on video doing all this dramatic macho stuff. I was cringing at the thought of it. I immediately opened negotiations for the editing rights.

It was dark by the time we had it beached and dismembered. I spent the evening standing guard over the crew as they chopped and cut the carcass into more manageable portions in waist deep water with the rest of the pod forty yards away looking on. We didn’t even have time for the trophy photo, but what a relief to have the bait in the river and the trophy in camp.

Selous Leopard

“Chui.” Warren whispered with tense excitement that cut through the dozy, heavy late afternoon miombo woodland. We had been in the mushan for nearly two hours. I was tired, from the normal demands and long days of safari life, but awake. I had been watching a fish eagle on a tall dead tree behind and to our right. Two little ring-necked doves had sat cuddled up together grooming, after their wash in a nearby waterhole, just above us. Not much else had happened in the interim though. The mushan was made simply of the cushioned back seat off the pick-up, surrounded by a long thatch grass skirt, tied in the forked branches of a tree twelve feet of the ground. The tree stood in open riverine woodland with eight-foot dense dry thatchgrass covering the ground. The bait was forty-five yards off in a dry riverbed. Both Warren and the shooter had a good view but I was behind the trunk of the tree and had to lean forward to look out of the shooters peep whole to see the bait clearly. We had a clear view of our immediate surround from up there. The cicadas were screaming and flies buzzed in the still heat. A ring-necked dove krrrook-KAROO-karooked with precise regularity and clarity from a tree near by. The fish eagle grated its harsh alarm. This leopard had been feeding for two days since I had first seen the track, and it felt at home. We had confirmed this two hours before and hurried to build the mushan while the clients ate a late lunch. A large cat scrambled up the back of the tree and tried to feed but fell down comically looking embarrassed, not knowing he should be, and was amusing us. I tried to judge its size and sex. If it was big enough and male I would be responsible for its death, so I looked carefully. It was just big enough and with an aged head and a slender lithe body. It took me a little time to find the balls peering around the tree. All of us were now tense with anticipation and I certainly will admit to a hollow feeling in my lower gut. The tom had not stood yet and was all fluid movement. Warren is a cameraman and was taking footage for the shooters father. We were co-conspirators already, both having a beach boy outlook on life. The shooter was fourteen and steady throughout. They had spent a week with the boss and after the bosses intensity he was enjoying being with a couple of South African beach louts out for some fun. He was shooting well with us too. The bait was a Zebra back legs tied low for lion and covered with grass to hide it from the vultures. It was six feet off the ground and four feet from the branch it was hung from. This was proving difficult for the tom who managed to bungle a further attempt at the bait but some how came away with a chunk of rather high meat. He moved off out of the shooters field and ravished the meat. This almost immediately made him wretch, either he was un-well or the meat was over, even for a leopard. Without a sound the tom disappeared into the grass on the left where we could only catch glimpses of grass moving through the trees. He climbed a tree in front of Warren out of sight for the shooter and I. There he lay and licked himself casually. The tension was building for me. The safari needed a cat and it was late in the day. No chance at a shot though and I wanted to laugh and swear. Suddenly the tom was on the move again, he slipped down into the grass ten foot below him effortlessly. Again the grass jingled as he came to within a few yards of our tree. We glanced at each other with bemused exasperated tension. “ Relax, take a deep breath” I whispered to the shooter and took my own advice. I slipped my leatherman from its sheath and opened it feeling very sheepish but wanting a blade. My rifle was ready to shoot forward and turning it would have given us away. The tom was clearly looking for a tree to climb and I thought he might choose ours. After another eternity he chose a tree at 10 o’clock and sprang gracefully into view. He lay down offering us his ass and little else. I put my arm up and held the tree in front of me and asked the shooter to pull his rifle back, slipping it out of the shooting hole and lay it over my arm to see if he had a shot. I smiled at Warren asking in sign if he minded a 375 going off inches from his ear. He shrugged and indicated his earplugs. I thought it should be OK. We had no shot unless the tom stood up and looked our way. I needed to stir him from his slumber but not scare him to flight. I told the shooter to be ready and threw my sunglasses out in front of us having to through them through the branches. He slept on. ” Shit, what now?” I muttered. I took my prized leatherman and flung it into the long grass trying to see where it landed for recovery later, not taking my eye off the cat. Not even a flicker of the ear. I exchanged exasperated looks with the shooter. “Just be ready”, I mouthed. OK then, plan desperation, I slipped, very noisily, a plastic water bottle from my backpack and tossed it away where it thudded to the ground. The cicadas shrieked endlessly and the cat slept on. Bloody hell did you ever see such a stupid wild animal, I thought. The light was fading fast now so I grabbed the last bottle of water and tossed it hard. Finally! The leopard stood and turned to look directly at us. I braced myself and waited for an eternity. Nothing happened. “What, shoot the dam cat” I hissed to the about to ask shooter. I braced again twisting to follow the cat as the 375 cracked, the leopard stiffened on impact then leaped falling heavily to the ground and rustled off into the grass. I was sure it must have been killer shot and we were excited immediately. I asked the shooter to stay in the tree and called the car in so that I could climb down. As it arrived I got down, followed by Warren. I was ready, having strapped a very powerful torch to the rifle and so I set off into the grass. Now I was really full of adrenalin and on edge. I refused the car preferring the near total silence on foot. At least then I would hear a charge start. “A thousand stitches a second “ Warren quipped helpfully. “Where are you going? “ I asked him as he got down from the hunting pick-up. “Wouldn’t miss this for the world” he answered. “What if it is alive and jumps on you?” I said. “I have total trust in you” his reply. “You really are mad then.” Was my retort. “You will see nothing from in the grass, stay up on the pick-up and enjoy my mauling.” I added. The tracker and I started to try and follow blood, but it soon ran out in the very thick grass. My heart was almost jumping out of my chest as we creped around knowing the tom was within feet but not being able to locate it. As the light really turned I called up the car and we drove in the direction we had heard an unhealthy cough earlier. The car, moving very slowly, came up against something and I called the driver to back up. There it lay, a very dead leopard, the beautiful coat still and quiet never to glide through the grass again. I felt sad but let out a great hoot of joy and relief, to lighten my mood and relax the crew. Time to celebrate with the hero of the hour, and contemplate my part in the downing of the king of the thicket, alone, later.

Losimengore December 2003

This was not the easiest week I have had. There were three Austrians that were together through choice and one, with his wife that was with them through fate. Of the companions of preference one is an agent who wanted the best for his clients, who are friends and colleagues, both being in the hardware and building supply trade. One, a simple humble man, giving an impression of being easy going with a toothy grin, submissively hunched shoulders, and gaps the size of snooker pockets in a mouth nearly as wide as the table. His turnover is about twenty million dollars a year. His colleague is blunt, gruff and bordering on rude vulgar-ness, and the richer of the two. I would be nervous about leaving any pretty thing in his care. Both are ugly short and square to round, the richer man's head is large and very bald in top with the classic long hair on one side that is to be brushed over the top. However this style of deception dose not lend itself to hunting the green hills of Northern Tanzania leading to my comparing him to the comical sight of a long crested eagle with the breeze from behind.

The agent was the dry mouthed hanger on, and front of all scheming contact with the company. He is tall and nervous.

The professionals were to have been the long legged young German, owner of the company, advocate of the area and physically challenging buffalo hunting, and myself. However the young German had malaria bad and so a small mild wrinkled Zimbo took his spot with an hours notice.

The Austrian couple is not married but together, in love, and refreshing. He, a little boastful, has made his life by starting the second biggest company in the world manufacturing plotters for machine tools. A small, specialized and profitable field. The usual happened and he sold to the biggest and did very well thank you. He is very comfortable and keeps busy running the investments he has and hunting his alpine concession. She is a widower, left behind by a depressive suicide and generously scooped up by the rich man climbing out of the wreckage of two broken mirages. I liked them, but expected no favours and got none.

The last players were a German couple with history and good standing. Post war refugees from the Baltic States. Fine examples off good Germans, physically large, polite, eager and first in the cue. She has claim to being a Baroness and he bears a neat scar down his left cheek, the result of a dual with sabre to prove manhood is serious, and acceptance by the best is hard won.

I knew this was to be a demanding complicated trip when they informed me, at the hotel on the first morning I met them, that they had not known they would have company in camp. The baroness, who was very genuine and interested in all, did not take to the blunt retailer with no manners at all. Her husband could hardly see over his enthusiasm for the hunt and cared less if he was eating with pigs or Austrian purveyors of hardware and building materials, his dignity self assured.

I decided to run to the hills and fly camp up in the damp clouds with the two couples in dome tents on the first day. Now the Austrian had, had surgery on a knee ten days before and did not want too challenging a time while the German was there to prove his physical superiority and ability to beet the ageing process. The Austrian lover would not let her Knight in shining armour out of her sight so in spite of the hardship involved she resolutely accompanied him everywhere. There were the three of them, a tracker, an insignificant other to help, and myself.

Hunting buff in this area is hill stalking over difficult terrain or tracking through steep valleys, thick itching bush and cloud forest. On the first evening we walked along the narrow ridges that are breaks of grass from the forest sided deep valleys that fall away on either side. The Austrian decided he would not follow us down the last grass tangled drop off and sat waiting with his lover and rifle on a prominent knoll for overview. As we later rejoined him he told of a strange noise that after a couple of attempts was clearly labelled as buffalo bellow that had emanated from the tangle fifty yards behind. We cautiously approached and soon realized that we had a herd of the beasts on the edge of a clearing about to venture out to graze the evening due. It was now dusk and I am not fond of following lead stung, nose out of joint, black beasts, nearly a ton of fury, at night and called it a day. As we started out of our cover there emerged a cow and young bull a few yards away and stood there starring at us deciding if it would be fight or flight. A couple of gestures with waving arms set them on the latter course and we walked on to camp in the dark, leaving a tightly defended clump of buffalo defending a small mound, drawn up in the classic circle and gazing after us through he fading light.

At dawn the next day we set out squinting through the mist at every rock or bush in case it transformed into the deadly. The grass was heavy with due and the old mans beard dripped from every tree. The German was a foot behind me all the time where he should have been, but the Knight lagged with his quiet uncomplaining and solid partner. We tracked a heard for five hours down the mountain and I think we would have got one if the recovering gentleman had not lost all sense of humour and sat down in the path not to budged for about an hour. The going was worsening by the minute and he put on a brave face and lent heavily on the helper there to assist him.

When we did finally catch up with the herd, it was as I had given over to despondency and fatigue in trying to maintain some semblance of order and enthusiasm. These were typical buff. Three bulls left the dividing and re-merging track to hold up in a thicker bit of the impenetrable brush on a particularly steep part of the descent but near the valley floor. I noticed where they had split off and followed their track a little way to re-assure myself that they had gone some way and were not lying in wait to ambush us, as is their habit. The head tracker and I scanned the dens vegetation carefully and I even used my new ten power binoculars. The path they had chosen was too steep and cluttered for our despondent noisy party so still a little wearily I started down the path taken by the heard. As I went two paces the dense mass of stick where the tracks led, erupted as three huge angry solid masses crashed their way down over the path that I was about to go down, breaking trees and rolling stones as they went. It was the dawning of the truth and the reality of what we were about for those that were new to the game.

By this time I had lost hope of bagging a buff as they were on to us and we did not have the option of wearing them down till the face off, as I like to do when the stamina is spiked with determination and excitement. They crashed and thundered off twice more from around us causing worried panic once as the Knight tripped while jumping to the protection of his maiden, and the safety of a large tree trunk.

I called the car to us by radio and we drove back up the hill. The next day our long legged employer arrived a little over his illness and ready to sacrifice his health for his fellow German friend’s need of a better buffalo head. I took the Austrians down the mountain to the main camp and we tried again the next day. I now had an inexperienced, stupid young Maasai as tracker who lost the best path the next morning and by so doing walked us into an old one horned bull, who’s bones would have already dispersed and been picked clean by the vulture, if it was not for the skin holding them together.

The typical quandary ensued.

“ He has one horn would you like to shoot him,” repeated twice while seven yards from the pitiful parasite infested heap. A nod followed by a shot and then jubilation. Even I was pleased having done a favour to the sickly old animal.

“ Oh, he only has one horn!” As if he didn't hear.

“Where did you aim?” I ask.

“For the heart.” The reply.

“Well that was a great neck shot.” The unspoken retort.

And the last thing the old buffalo knew was the sweet honeyed sent of yellow fever tree blossom.


We then all walked up the valley just in case there was another buffalo for the taking, but this was not the day for a double. I left the young tracker and game scout skinning the cape and escorted the gentleman and his about to gag lady back to the car. I returned with water for the lads only to find that a nightmare had come true and the fool had tried to sharpen my $250 hunting knife on a stone. It took all my self-control not to take his thick little head from his skinny little shoulders.

Now that my new friend had his head for the wall of the mansion I was told to take a bash with one of his compatriots. I ended up with the older better healed of the two. The gapped grinner and agent dumped him on me having figured that he would slow them in hill and canyon hunting. I only found out on the last day that he had a heart history. He tried hard and was uncomplaining with me and I liked him by the end of it all. I proceeded to walk to any likely water with him over the next three days.

The others had better luck that first of the second buffalo days and ran up a steep incline to get around and take out another reasonable head from the valleys. I love hunting. The agent and his two clients confronted me after lunch that day hoping to put pressure on a man trying to hunt buffalo up hills in the thick. I didn't’t really give a shit for their gripes and I hope they noticed that though my customary politeness. We were all making the best we could of a bad dry dusty time and no unjustified griping would change a thing. Three hours later they had a buff and could not stop patting backs and smiling.

The last chance humpty and I where to have was on the final hunting day. I drove north from camp and set myself up on a good viewpoint overlooking the valleys and ridges hoping to catch sight of an old bull who’s tracks we had seen the day before. He we did not out and about, but way of in the distance about four kilometres through the dawn, I spotted a herd moving in the open and we planed an approach. After a drive and mile long walk they popped up out of a valley just in front of us and moving in our direction.

It looked as if they would cross our field of view at about thirty yards and up wind. Perfect. We took cover behind the scant bushes available, to choose a bull as they strolled by. Without warning a yearling bull took the lead from the pathfinder old cow and changed course, straight for us. It looked now that some of the outriders may walk down wind of us and that the good bulls were far back and out of range. I moved forward and down wind again reaching more sparse cover while the herd plodded on the frontrunners at forty yards. A desperate huddled bent creep over open ground. Nobody followed me! I gestured desperately to the game scout to come over NOW with the client and tracker. Nobody moved. The tracker placed the shooting sticks for the client who aimed. I heard a faint strained, “shoot, shoot”.

By now the lead buffalo was close and I hoped perhaps they had a line on a good bull. They didn't’t. The buffalo came on while I watched. Visions of my lost hunting career wanted to flick before my eyes. How would I live with the guilt? There are no excuses for a dead client!

Buffalo are very hard to shoot well from the front as they loll along, their heads down and I was wandering what I could do, not wanting to scare the herd off as they would not stay once disturbed. As the lead buffalo neared ten paces from them the game scout gave a panicked grunt. The herd froze gazing ahead looking for the disturbance with bloodshot, uncertain, angry eyes. Now I had to act. I stamped the ground to bring their unwelcome attention on to me. They adjusted their stance and glared in my direction. I stamped again, and that was enough. They rumbled off, mildly alarmed. In the shimmering dry heat they headed for the nearest entangled shade to encircle and settle for the slow time when only mad dogs and I would move.

As you can imagine I had very simple language for the tracker. What was to be a very easy hunt had turned into the usual dangerous cat and mouse with for warned buffalo, that the hunter seldom wins. It was to thick to be sure but what looked to be a very reasonable bull gazed at us through the brush as they settled down for their siesta. Although the man shooting had already stated that any buffalo would do, I will not allow for guesswork in the taking of a life to adorn some wall. Old it must be for me.

I left the tracker and driver with a radio, instructed not to disturb the herd and to watch from some distance, while we went for lunch. When I got back I could tell that there was a problem by the talkativeness of the driver and the lack of information from the tracker. This young Maasai was typical in that he was arrogant and too cool. He was, as they are, tall dark and very well proportioned. He insisted on wearing a colourful balaclava no matter how warm. He has the mandatory small balanced head, high cheekbones and aloof air. So aloof that to appear to pay head to his surroundings, or anything I might say or do, was below him. A good trait that may be the end of him soon. Or he may be blessed with the ample cats lives, mixed with a few guardian angles, that I have employed. If he is lucky he may live long enough to grow through that idealistic self assured time. However I took what they had to say at face value and on that information very carefully stalked a thicket containing the dozing herd. This was not easy, the challenge being to creep up on sixty wary eyes and ears. They may be dozing, but they are never all down and out, in a breeding herd. After some considerable stealth and about an hour that felt like three we managed to find two females and a calf! It soon became apparent from the tracks that the rest were long gone. I had had this premonition when giving out the instructions before lunch, but my warnings and humanism had, as always dulled my, sensibilities. These two worthy men had obviously tried to get close and fucked it royally.

I have never believed in gratuities as a surety, finding the situation as embarrassing as saying goodbye, and it appeared that the Austrians agreed with me. The Germans however where very gracious and understood the difficulties of the hunt. Nobody much liked the rest and there was much grumbling from the working contingent. I find that a person must be evil before I will dislike, except perhaps if they are young and think they have learnt it all.