ELEPHANT HUNTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 256, 30 October 1939, Page 5

ELEPHANT HUNTS

THRILLS IN AFRICA ; NEW ZEALANDER’S STORY. ’ Experiences in stalking herds of; elephant in equatorial regions in Africa, during which he crossed the!| equator three times in one day, shot!, an elephant that stood 10ft. Ilin, to I! the withers, and on one expedition 1 < lost his companion, who later turned ■< up riding a bicycle he had borrowed ' ( from a native chief, are interestingly ! | related by Mr. Eric Mulligan, of Mai- I, field, near Ashburton, in a letter he I, has sent lo his father. Mr. R. J. Mulli- . ( gan. The largest of several he has shot,; the elephant, referred to had a length I. of 15ft. 3in. without trunk or tail; the;! tusks had. a circumference of 15Hn., j showing 3ft. Bin., with as much covered by skin. The ears had a spread ! of 9ft. and they were 4ft. 2in. from j top to bottom. It took 12 shots to L bring the monster down. “He was very I sick after the first shot," Mr. Mulligan | writes, “but he was running away and I. it was hard to get in an effective shot |] from behind. In the end I got hipi, r and he is my third.” Motoring in Mountains. I < Mr. Mulligan went to Africa with;, Mr. Gerald Westenra, of Dunsandel, and their expedition appears to have been most successful. They have covered a huge tract of country and have used a car to convey themselves from one place to another, preferring the . less-frequented tracks to the tourist lanes. Motoring they found to be very dangerous in some places, and the mountainous road gave them a good deal to think about. At Lake Kivu they came to a downward run, ; where they travelled five miles on three occasions with the engine shut, off as they coasted to the shore through scenery of great beauty. Held up at a toll gale one day, the

New Zealanders, debarred h\ a native from crossing into more profitable shooting country, produced as r last resort a New Zealand lamb tag which the native took lo bp some sort of official badge, foi hr at once opened the gate for them io pass. Elephants’ Keen Scent. Although nearly “blind as bats,” as the writer of the letter puts it, elephants have a wonderfully keen scent and the hunters’ greatest difficulty was in getting to positions where they could shoot with some chance of success. In the steaming heat of the bush they found hunting extremely trying and it was on one more than usually exhausting day that Mr. Wesitenra, separated from his friend, was ! faced with a long walk back to camp. ! It was then he found that a chief in a ' near-by village had a bicycle, which was borrowed to bring the New Zeallander back to camp. ! On the border of the Congo and [Uganda the party shot several ele- | phants although the stalking of the animals entailed walks of up to 11 miles at a time. Trailing one herd, ‘they came on them only 40 yards ! away, when a bull at once took the ! hunters' scent and charged, being i brought down by Mr. Mulligan with a I shot in the head. A second shot finished it. The tusks of this elephant ! weighed 251 b. each. Soon after this |one fell to his gun, Mr. Mulligan was successful with a 35-pounder, using four shots. Pygmy Village. Mr. Mulligan tells in his letter of the feasts the natives indulge in after elephants have been shot, the natives coming from long distances and appearing magically out of the forest to cut up the carcases. The party visited also a pygmy village in the Ituri Forest, and tried out the bows and arrows, the natives displaying much excitement when the white men hit a target. At the time of writing the New Zealanders had still a considerable area of Africa to visit.