As a further example of marksmanship (if brain shooting a
great many elephants isn't enough), Bell once used up the
remainder of his unwanted .318 ammunition by shooting flying
cormorants out of the air. Spectators believed that he was
using a shotgun and were amazed to find that he was actually
using a rifle. He was also observed shooting fish that were
jumping from the surface of a lake.
I will make the point that unlike many African
writers (Peter Capstick jumps to mind), Karamojo
Bell doesn't seem to have been particularly
threatened by an elephant, rogue or otherwise.
Nor did he have to turn a charge or anything
like that. The prose in his books has none
of the trumpeting about the manly virtues of
facing grisly death upon which Capstick built
his writing career and that has been popular
ever since Hemingway went on a couple of hunting
trips. (Hemingway was disappointed when he
shot a lion and it simply died.)
In his opinion, a great many of the charges
that one heard about were actually panicked
animals who didn't know in which direction
danger lay and were fleeing towards the hunter.
In his letters he wrote that he had probably
shot between 600 and 700 buffalo in his time
and had never been charged even once. However,
he stated that he made it his business to never
have to deal with a wounded buffalo.
He sighted his rifles in right on the nose
at 80 yards and preferred to get within 30
to 40 yards of his elephants. He would drop
the first one, then climb on top of it so as
not to be trampled by the other members of
the herd and so he could get clear shots.
One does not walk down an elephant in uncharted
African wilderness with a tool one regards
as marginal and Bell had complete confidence
in his ability to harvest elephants with the
Rigby Mauser. It was his business and also
his hide at stake, especially considering that
the amount of money to be made was considerable.
To put his efforts into perspective, he wrote
of one day when he tracked and shot nine elephants.
He estimated that he had earned 877 pounds
sterling from the ivory harvested from those
nine kills. After one expedition he returned
with ivory worth over 23,000 pounds sterling.
That was a vast sum of money and converted
to today's currency equivalent it would make
your eyes water. One does not risk that kind
of money and effort on a questionable calibre.
Walter Bell left Scotland a young adventurer
obsessed with hunting. He first travelled to
East Africa and took a short lived job as a
lion hunter at the age of sixteen, on the same
stretch of railway that later became notorious
for the Lions of Tsavo, the extraordinary man-eaters
that plagued the railway workers. He travelled
to the Yukon Territory to cash in on the gold
rush and make his fortune. It did not pan out
and he became a market hunter, shooting game
for the Dawson markets with a Winchester single
shot falling block rifle, until he was robbed
by his partner. He joined the Canadian forces
sent to fight alongside the British in the
Boer War in South Africa at the turn of the
20th Century. Taken prisoner at one point by
the Boers, he managed to escape. When the war
was settled, he stayed on and bought his way
into elephant hunting, outfitting his first
safari on foot into East Africa.
He retired to Scotland a wealthy man and after
marrying an aristocratic wife he bought an
estate in Scotland called "Corriemollie." There
is no unhappy or overly dramatic ending to
his story. He lived unscathed through all of
his adventures to enjoy the wealth he had accumulated
with his rifle.
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