Evening Star Newspaper, September 14, 1930, Page 110

ES THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, SEPTEMBER 14, 1930. v Capturing a Pygmy Hippopotamus Alive An Exciting Hippo Hunt in the Further- most Wilds of Africa. EDITOR’S NOTE.—J. L. Buck has spent much of his life capturing wild animals in remote corners of the world. He has traveled deep into the jungles of both Africa and South America and had many thrilling ex- periences. Mr. Buck gives here a most entertaining as well as excit- ing account of the adroit capture of a live pigmy hippopotamus. The se- ries of disappointments, both dis- tressing and comical, and the clever trickery that had to be resorted to before the 800-pound Horace was at last trapped, caged, and home- ward bound, make a fascinating story. "f HENEVER I think of Horace I A think kindly. Horace tried my i patience, kept me wearily wait- ing, led me a chase in his cap- ture, broke down my fences, and G -alt me a final blow by dying ten days before v.> reached New York. Yet with me his mem- oty is green; for, troublesome as he was, Hor- vse, the first pigmy hippopotamus that ever lized for long under my care, was a likable chap. Sometimes I even thought he returned my affection. But this is not the beginning of th> story. " My he);d boy,.Hecwr, and I had boarded the Dutch steamer Hercules at Kanakri, on the West African coast. After two days we landed ot Monrovia, Traveling north in a surfboat f:cn Monrovia, we reached Cape Mount harbor and passed safely through the perilous surf of th: bay. Soon we were warmly welcomed by th> Americans of the mission at Cape Mount and were invited to dine with some of them. In the course of our talk at the table I in- quired about the pigmy hippopotamus. 'When I explained that I hoped to take one alive the mon hesitated. They had never heard of a hippo’s being taken alive. They were canny b-asts, and they lived in remote waters. The natives caught them, but always dead. How would a man take one of these 800-pounders alive, anyway? “Well,” I insisted, “I will try.” Later the missionaries introduced me to a claver lad whose extraordinary name was Pea Soup. He would give me good advice about hippo localities, And early the nexp morning we set out in a canoe on our 49-mile paddle un toward the Mauwa River—Pea Soup, Hector, six paddlers and I. “HREE days’ travel brought us to an evil, swampy country where the marshes stretched to the river and the land was inter- loced with small tributaries of the Mauwa in b wildering number. And from each of these cr eks stretched hippo paths, as the beaten- down elephant grass told us plainly. At length we grounded, up one of these little s rcams, and pushed for a half hour along a hispo path through the swamps till we reached a t-ee, where Pea Soup explained what we saw: Y/hile he talked in Mondi to Hector I looked absut me in exultation, there in the farther- mest wilds of the world. I thought of the life that passed under this tree by night—the g not, the civet, the serval, the leopard, the dile, the African elephant and the pigmy sopotamus. And then Hector was ready to translate. This tree was rigged with a native trap for t.%ing the hippopotamus. From one of its b anches a stout liana rope dragged to the g ound, where, with a calabash, or gourd, at its end, it was fastened to a trigger. From another sinall tree, some 10 feet distant, the other end oi the rope hung in midair, holding a huge blick of wood, and to its under side was fas- ten>d a large, sharp-barbed spear. The device was plausible. The hippo would coime along and release the nearer end of the rcpe when he stumbled on the trigger. He w uld start ahead nervously, just in time to r.-ive the cruel spear in his back, as the loos- er 1 further end of the rope sent down the b’ 'k and its burden with savage force. The s' icken animal would plunge painfully home, d:1gging to his river the rope and the calabash. Quickly he would bleed to death and then sink. Avd the calabash, floating on the waters like a buoy, would tell the hungry natives where ti:e meal of hippopotamus lay. So Pea Soup gvlained, while Hector translated. he spear trap was useless to me, since I must take my beast alive. So I urged Pea Soup to lead us to a second device, which was a pit 6 feet wide, 8 feet deep, 10 feet Ilong. Alter the pit is dug, Pea Soup explained, it must be covered with crossed sticks, fronds and I>phant g to make it look like the rest of hippo path. Sunk into the ground in the and projecting 3 feet above ground, several spears. The unfortunate beast, aoiing through the frail camouflage, would cod on the spears and bleed to death, dying ribly. The pit, therefore, was no better the spear trap. BEFORE I could solve my problem, night forced us to make for the village on the op- posite shore. There I introduced myself to Chief Bauio, who lent me a hut in which Hec- tor set up my cot. It was past midnight when I awoke, bolt upright and talking aloud to my- self. I had dreamed of what I was sure would be a perfect way to take my hippo alive. So the next day, with boys hired from the chief, I started up the river again, finally choosing a remote hippo path that stretched for more than half a mile between the stream- let and the rice fields. When we came to a suitable tree I sent Hettor up with a rope, which we fastened to a trigger, native fashion. But the other end I drew behind the first, and to it I attached an old kerosene can half filled with empty tins. When the snare was set I tested it by touching the trigger with my sjam- bok, or hippo staff. The rope went flying up- ward and the kerosene can went clattering to earth. Pea Soup cried out, jumping. “It will work,” I said to myself. “It frightened Pea Soup—it will frighten the hippo.” So I cheerfully superintended the digging of a pit—not eight, but ten feet deep. The extra two feet I stuffed with dried grasses to break the hippo’s fall. At the bottom my pit was ten feet by fifteen, but il narrowed to an opening of six by ten, so small as to make escape im- possible for a captured hippo. On the third day, when the last pailful of earth had been carried off, we fixed the camoufiage over the opening, rigged the trigger to the rope, and then returned to the village. The plan is obvious. When the rattle clat- tered out of the tree behind the hippo he would naturally run forward in fright. In a moment, therefore, he would go tumbling down upon his soft bed of grasses, wigere he would lie un- harmed till we found him. It scemed reason- able to me. 5 But how would we be sure a hippo would pass over this particular path? And, even if he passed, would he stumble upon some little thing, unnoticed by us, that would send him off before he reached the trigger? Then, too, how could I be sure my trap was set on a path still traveled by hippos? Very soon I decided that, to be sure of taking even one animal, I must prepare many pits. So within a circum- ference of thirty miles, I selected twenty-six other seemingly favorable locations. And in the days when the pits were being dug, that swamp hummed with industry. I made Hector and Pea Scup and a tall, stringy lad called Bo- sambo overseers, assigning one-third of the couniry to each. But before any one of the pits was left as finished I inspected each detail. ’l‘HEN a long wait began. Before daybreak each morning the three boys made the rounds of their allotted traps. The days of our waiting stretched into a fortnight, to the morn- ing when Hector, paddling back to the village, panted excitedly: “Massa, he drop down, fill pit up! saw him! Plenty big hippo for true.” It did not take us many minutes to pack a canoe with boards and tools of all kinds. Then we set out, three boatloads of us, moving up- stream to the plaintive singing of the boys. Soon I was peering down at our hippo from a board stretched across the opening of the pit, He lay there in the dimness, a fine big chap, wallowing strangely on his side, while from his pinkish, half-opened mouth came a sound that seemed to me hardly normal. Something was the matter with him, I knew at once, What? I made haste to find out. The boys brought me a pole. I prodded him. His response was a low and pig-like half grunt, half growl. It was plainly tinged with suffer- Massa, I ing. I prodded the beast again. Suddenly he rose—but on three feet. His fourth leg, the front left, he lifted, as if he wished to spare it. He had broken his leg when he fell into the pit! THE task that now faced me before I could prepare the pit again was to get the hippo out of it. Had he not met with this accident T should have caged him down there, but to have caged an injured animal would have been extravagantly laborious. Though the boys eagerly begged to be permitted to spear him, since he was now useless for my purposes, to allow them to do so was out of the question, since the scent of hippo blood would have warned any other animal away from the trap. I thought long and carefully and finally contrived a plan. Taking a long liana rope two inches thick, I attached a large loop of it to a pole, the better to let it down to the hippo. Standing on a plank stretched over the pit, I manipulated my loop for thirty minutes before I had it over the hippo’s neck. Then I handed the ends to forty boys ranged in two lines back from the edge. “Now pull!” I commanded. “Pull hard! Ready—go!” They put their strength into it, and the board that we had placed at the pit edge to prevent undermining moved unsteadily as the hippo below wiggled and squirmed and flopped in rage. But the more he struggled, of course, the tighter the rope settled about his huge neck. At last he fell back, strangled, a great, limp hulk. After that the forty boys easily lifted him over the side. In an hour we were towing him behind one of the canoes back to the village. I examined him to confirm my diagnosis of a broken leg.. It seemed to me that some pe- culiarity in the fall had been more responsible than any fault of my pit. But for added pre- caution I ordered an extra six-inch layer of dried grass to be thrown into each of the twenty-seven pits. GAIN a weary wait, made more weary be- cause the rainy season had begun. Days stretched into a week. Then once more the news arrived, Bosambo bringing it this time. “Massa, big hippo all down pit for true. Trigger spring. No humbug.” At my door I looked upon the incessant rain. “We will wait one time,” I answered, mean- ing we must wait for a dry interval. I expected this to come shortly, since at the beginning of the wet season it never rains con- tinuously. But all that day I hugged my hut while the waters increased. The river was ris- ing fast, and my anxiety about the animal grew with the deluge. In the pitiless downpour of daybreak we set out on our soaking journey, through a world that seemed to be resolved into noisome ooze. I shall never forget how we tugged up the bank, slipping, pulling ourselves with our hands, stepping from hummock to hummock till we reached the pit. What we found made my heart ache. The water was nearly to the top of the pit. But our hippo was nowhere. Sick with apprehen- sion, I felt that fate could not be so unkind. Still, where was he? I sank a pole into the pit, and on the in- stant came an upheaval of the waters. There he was, gone into seclusion, doubtless, when he heard us sloshing up the path. It seemed that a brightness flashed across the wet air; we looked at one another and smiled. Then, while I stood by, helpless, happened the tragedy. The waters were now about level with the sides of the pit. “Suppose——" I had There was a flurry, the push of a power- ful head. Then came the blur of mix- ing limbs, now hand, now foot in air as the lad speeded with a slimy somersault into the pit. Hlustrated by Armstrong Sperry. thought to myself when first I prodded the hippo. But I had not dared to finish the thought. A few minutes later the rising waters made my premonition come true. The hippo gurgled to the top, struggled to breast the dis- tance to the edge of his prison, gripped the banks with his forepaws and mouth, followed, after a tussle, with his rear feet, and walked right away from under our eyes. THE boys shouted in hysteria. This tragedy— it must be prevented. So Pea Soup figured, as he dashed out in front of the advancing hippo. “Loffit—boy—loffit!” I cried, meaning, “Get out of the way!” for I realized that many men unarmed on slippery ground are no match for a single hippo if he decides to fight. But Pea Soup paid no heed to my shout. The enraged animal made for him. There was a flurry, the push of a powerful head. Then came the blur of mixing limbs, now head, now foot in air, while the lad speeded with a slimy somersault into the pit. I rushed toward him as the other boys fell back. I knew that if the hippo turned upon him it might mean ruin for all of us. But the hippo mercifully flopped ahead toward the river, leaving mle to fish for poor Pea Soup. Soon he came up, wet and shaken. I was sol- emnly grateful. Again our prize had escaped. As I fell asleep that night I knew that if the rains persisted I should fail of my hippo. But, fortunately, fate shuffied the cards once more. Next day I awoke to the sunshine that promised success. There was, however, trouble in the village. Chief Bauio had departed for a distant cone clave with other native leaders, and the mis- chief had begun to brew as soon as his back was turned. One of the young leaders of the ‘Purrah Bush, a secret society of men, had died very suddenly. Word rippled around that he had been poisoned. The hysteria increased umtil the evening, when the witch doctor donned his devil dress and the natives worked up their emotions to the weird devil dance. Everywhere mad voices called for the poisoner to declare himself. Cries rang out to the ac- companiment of the growl of the hippo, far upstream, or the distant reviling of the hyena. The night was alive. In the morning Bosambo came to me after his inspection. ‘“Massa, trigger spring one time. I no wait look down in trap. He there, rascal for true.” He pointed upstream. We started out again, silently, because of past failures. It was a new sort of anti-climax that awaited us when we finally reached the pit. A wretched old man had fallen within and was looking up, whites of eyes wide with terror. I ordered the boys to help him out and returned to the village for my belated siesta. But I was awakened shortly by wild cries, accusations and threats, Outside I found a group manhandling the poor old fellow of the pit. He was the poisoner, they were mumbling. It was he who had killed the Purrah leader. I hastened to rescue him and the men with- drew to the palaver hut, still nursing their hysteria. ¥ And then, just as the feeling at the palaver hut came to a head, word was received that Chief Bauio was on his way home. As soon as he arrived, I got his ear. I shall always admire him for what happened next. A born leader, he strode toward the men, his arms raised. “Cut the palaver—one time!” was the way Hec- tor translated® ulg §twrds tor me. They scurried off. The old man pottere away into the dark=- ness, saved for this time at least. I fell asleep,