Letters From the Dark Continent 3
My dear Entwhistle,
I was distressed upon reading your letter to me that you have had a dose of, ah, shall we say 'the dreaded lurgy' and leave it at that. Some things must remain unsaid and this, my dear friend, is one of those things. Suffice to say that it is my earnest hope that the cream proves an effective remedy - and at least you have the consolidation that the affected areas are not visible to others. Though I realise that sitting down must be somewhat problematic.
I write to you from the afore-mentioned trading post at the mouth of the N'congo. We had suffered months of traipsing through the dense jungle, afflicted with flies, wild animals, cannibals and a lack of any alcohol of any kind - my last case of single malt scotch was dropped down a ravine after a porter was knocked for six by that old fool Carruthers. The whisky fell to its doom, watched helplessly by myself and the party. We had thought the porter safe; alas, the vine he had grabbed onto turned out to be a huge snake and there was no rescuing the poor chap.
So, we take our ease here, resting our weary bodies and re-provisioning before we set out once again. As I sit in my wicker chair my mind drifts back to an expedition in West Bengal when I went tiger hunting. I had equipped myself with a stout gun capable of felling an elephant. Dryden contented himself with a lighter rifle which, though accurate, was possessed of a calibre distinctly on the small side. Utterly-Bassingthwaite, though, had armed himself with the most outlandish weapon of all of us; an ancient Chinese firing piece decorated with gaudy gold and red scroll work. I feared that the weapon was as much a danger to him as it was to any tigers we may encounter.
We set out early one morning, with a party of beaters fanning out to scare the beasts from their lairs. One would imagine that such men, setting out to deliberately provoke such a fearsome creature, would be either brave or fools. They were neither; for the right amount of rupees, the men were ours and they went about their business cheerfully, without complaint. Tigers were known to be present in the mangrove swamps, so we skirted the edges of the swamps, remaining on dry ground.
We went on in this manner for some hours. The sun was high in the sky and the sticky heat required us to take regular draughts of water from our canteens. We had relaxed into a state of casualness when all of a sudden we heard a tremendous crash, accompanied by a huge roar. A beater had found a tiger!
We hurried in the direction of the noises and upon rounding a dense clump of tall grass, we saw the unfortunate beater being mauled by an enormous, ferocious tiger. So intent it was upon its helpless, screaming victim that it did not see the three of us approach, brandishing our firearms. Dryden fired first, with his little pop-gun. He hit the tiger on its hind quarters with the effect of maddening it and nothing more. Utterly-Bassingthwaite raised his gun with alacrity - alas, my fears proved entirely warranted as the gun backfired into his face. Entwhistle - I know you have seen some sights in your time but rest assured, once seen, Utterly-Bassingthwaite's scarred and, it has to be said rearranged face, is not easily forgotten.
The tremendous noise of the gun backfiring further enraged the tiger and it eyed me hungrily, seeing another victim before it. I calmly raised my gun, aimed, squeezed the trigger and fired. I hit the creature smack in its chest, killing it in a second. It fell, quite dead, onto the beater it had mauled. He appeared to be waving at me - I had to admire the sang froid of the man. I shook his outstretched had as he gibbered at me in his own dialect. I assumed he was congratulating me on a good kill. I was not to find out truth of this however, as he died shortly thereafter. Ah, those were the days, Entwhistle. I bagged more tigers on that trip and mounted their heads on the wall of my study. Though one wonders quite how many tigers one could bag using one of the new maxim guns!
Pip-pip and God Save Queen Victoria.
I was distressed upon reading your letter to me that you have had a dose of, ah, shall we say 'the dreaded lurgy' and leave it at that. Some things must remain unsaid and this, my dear friend, is one of those things. Suffice to say that it is my earnest hope that the cream proves an effective remedy - and at least you have the consolidation that the affected areas are not visible to others. Though I realise that sitting down must be somewhat problematic.
I write to you from the afore-mentioned trading post at the mouth of the N'congo. We had suffered months of traipsing through the dense jungle, afflicted with flies, wild animals, cannibals and a lack of any alcohol of any kind - my last case of single malt scotch was dropped down a ravine after a porter was knocked for six by that old fool Carruthers. The whisky fell to its doom, watched helplessly by myself and the party. We had thought the porter safe; alas, the vine he had grabbed onto turned out to be a huge snake and there was no rescuing the poor chap.
So, we take our ease here, resting our weary bodies and re-provisioning before we set out once again. As I sit in my wicker chair my mind drifts back to an expedition in West Bengal when I went tiger hunting. I had equipped myself with a stout gun capable of felling an elephant. Dryden contented himself with a lighter rifle which, though accurate, was possessed of a calibre distinctly on the small side. Utterly-Bassingthwaite, though, had armed himself with the most outlandish weapon of all of us; an ancient Chinese firing piece decorated with gaudy gold and red scroll work. I feared that the weapon was as much a danger to him as it was to any tigers we may encounter.
We set out early one morning, with a party of beaters fanning out to scare the beasts from their lairs. One would imagine that such men, setting out to deliberately provoke such a fearsome creature, would be either brave or fools. They were neither; for the right amount of rupees, the men were ours and they went about their business cheerfully, without complaint. Tigers were known to be present in the mangrove swamps, so we skirted the edges of the swamps, remaining on dry ground.
We went on in this manner for some hours. The sun was high in the sky and the sticky heat required us to take regular draughts of water from our canteens. We had relaxed into a state of casualness when all of a sudden we heard a tremendous crash, accompanied by a huge roar. A beater had found a tiger!
We hurried in the direction of the noises and upon rounding a dense clump of tall grass, we saw the unfortunate beater being mauled by an enormous, ferocious tiger. So intent it was upon its helpless, screaming victim that it did not see the three of us approach, brandishing our firearms. Dryden fired first, with his little pop-gun. He hit the tiger on its hind quarters with the effect of maddening it and nothing more. Utterly-Bassingthwaite raised his gun with alacrity - alas, my fears proved entirely warranted as the gun backfired into his face. Entwhistle - I know you have seen some sights in your time but rest assured, once seen, Utterly-Bassingthwaite's scarred and, it has to be said rearranged face, is not easily forgotten.
The tremendous noise of the gun backfiring further enraged the tiger and it eyed me hungrily, seeing another victim before it. I calmly raised my gun, aimed, squeezed the trigger and fired. I hit the creature smack in its chest, killing it in a second. It fell, quite dead, onto the beater it had mauled. He appeared to be waving at me - I had to admire the sang froid of the man. I shook his outstretched had as he gibbered at me in his own dialect. I assumed he was congratulating me on a good kill. I was not to find out truth of this however, as he died shortly thereafter. Ah, those were the days, Entwhistle. I bagged more tigers on that trip and mounted their heads on the wall of my study. Though one wonders quite how many tigers one could bag using one of the new maxim guns!
Pip-pip and God Save Queen Victoria.