Clearly my grandfather was nervous, almost petrified throughout the endeavour, and yet, as evidenced by the above pictures, he continued. Similar to Orwell's police officer in "Shooting an Elephant," there was to be no turning back.
Growing up, this incident of my grandfather's had always been related to me as something that had to be done: a rogue elephant was terrorizing the locals and the killing was necessary to save further harm to human and property.
This letter has remained buried away until the recent, and the story rarely conversed about, especially now that we children have all grown up and moved away from an oddity that over the years was to be waxed and eventually covered with a velvet cushion and turned into a stool. And there was always that ivory tusk that had hung by its bands of silver on the various of wall, only to gradually be put to rest beneath my parent's bed.
As I read the letter, my kin was surprised to learn that "Jumbo" was not Robert's first, or only, choice. Indeed, the hunt was a planned excursion and the more altruistic ending merely happenstance.
This is not to imply sophistry on the part of anyone, merely the passage of time, or perhaps the wisdom that comes with age. History is, after all, to a large extent whispered in context. I have no insight into my grandfather's later thoughts on the matter, so we are left with conjecture based on what can be gleaned from research and the bits and pieces that constitute word of mouth.
Storytelling.
A letter home. This conversation that I am having with you.
Ten years on from a world war, this caring and curious thirty-two-year-old man took up his place with the times and killed an animal purely to prove something. Within his cultural background, one might use the term sport; someone native to various other parts of the world could have draped it with a veil of subsistence. Food. Tools. Jewellery. Hides. Beast of burden.
Man is man. There are reasons for actions, and then there be excuses. The hunt is in our personal definitions.
Growing up, this incident of my grandfather's had always been related to me as something that had to be done: a rogue elephant was terrorizing the locals and the killing was necessary to save further harm to human and property.
This letter has remained buried away until the recent, and the story rarely conversed about, especially now that we children have all grown up and moved away from an oddity that over the years was to be waxed and eventually covered with a velvet cushion and turned into a stool. And there was always that ivory tusk that had hung by its bands of silver on the various of wall, only to gradually be put to rest beneath my parent's bed.
As I read the letter, my kin was surprised to learn that "Jumbo" was not Robert's first, or only, choice. Indeed, the hunt was a planned excursion and the more altruistic ending merely happenstance.
This is not to imply sophistry on the part of anyone, merely the passage of time, or perhaps the wisdom that comes with age. History is, after all, to a large extent whispered in context. I have no insight into my grandfather's later thoughts on the matter, so we are left with conjecture based on what can be gleaned from research and the bits and pieces that constitute word of mouth.
Storytelling.
A letter home. This conversation that I am having with you.
Ten years on from a world war, this caring and curious thirty-two-year-old man took up his place with the times and killed an animal purely to prove something. Within his cultural background, one might use the term sport; someone native to various other parts of the world could have draped it with a veil of subsistence. Food. Tools. Jewellery. Hides. Beast of burden.
Man is man. There are reasons for actions, and then there be excuses. The hunt is in our personal definitions.
The letter continues...
I don’t know how long this situation lasted, but eventually I believed Jumbo had got rather far ahead so I moved on a bit quicker. I thought I heard him move some distance ahead & then there was silence & I was proceeding as quietly as I could when suddenly not more than 10 yards to my left there was a crash & a loud rustle. I was certain he was coming for me but I couldn’t see him & in a second or two it was evident he was off in another direction. I called up the Kachins & they said he must either have seen or smelt me & that he was only walking & not running as I had thought. Anyhow, it was some walk, as he certainly crashed over several trees & he sounded like a young tornado. I was relieved & felt like going back to camp for breakfast but the Kachins held a consultation & then took me back some considerable way along the route we had come, then branched off down into a muddy nullah (*editor's note: a "gully" or "narrow valley") & up the other side into tree jungle where sure enough we came on Jumbo’s tracks again. They thought he had gone some considerable distance, but we had only proceeded a few hundred yards when they heard him, although I didn’t & so I had to look for him again. I crept forward some little way when suddenly a small bushy tree about 50 yards ahead staggered violently & Mr. Jumbo appeared & then stopped. A shaft of light showed up his back & that was all I could see of him, but after a minute or so he turned in my direction & proceeded to approach slowly. Ye Gods! I squirmed. The head-on shot is the most difficult & I didn’t feel up to it so I looked round hastily & saw a tree on my right & although I had to get through one of those dwarf palms I did it somehow without making much noise & felt better, & when I looked up Jumbo had stopped again.
As a matter of fact, a tree – unless it is a very big one & you are up it – is little or no protection against an elephant if he sees you & is after you. When they are just roaming around for grub elephants knock over trees fully up to 1-foot in diameter, trees which I certainly could climb to a height of 20 feet or so, & what they can do when annoyed I don’t know nor want to see; but in any case, it isn’t their tusks they gore you with, they either give you a terrific sideways flick with their trunk or catch you up and smash you down with it & then proceed to tramp on you. A tree is, therefore, not safe cover, but one does give a feeling of protection.
To return to this particular Jumbo, there he was not more than 20 yards away & facing me & I stared at him, fascinated to see my first wild elephant face to face & wondering if I would be able to hold the rifle steady & hit the right spot should he advance. How long this lasted I don’t know, but I do know that Jumbo seemed to wax in bulk every second until he was a formidable size. Eventually he came forward a few paces & then turned to his left so that I got a proper view of his head & a good opportunity for a shot; but, he had no tusks! What an anticlimax. Fortunately, he just pulled a branch off a tree with his trunk, turned his back & disappeared, crash bang. What made him turn away I don’t know, but I wasn’t sorry. The Kachins were annoyed, however, as they said this Jumbo does a lot of damage to their paddy crops & that he is dangerous & chases them on sight. I don’t know what the technical name for an elephant without tusks is but I know they are fairly common in this latitude & very often are dangerous. Anyhow, I told the Kachins firmly that an elephant without tusks was no use to me & hoped that they did not perceive that I was relieved to have that excuse for not firing a shot, nor that I wished that they would not be able to find a suitable one.
Where we finished up was only about 1 mile from the village so we returned for a late breakfast & that evening I went out to the Kachins paddy fields & sat at an entrance to a hut hoping to get a shot at a wild pig, which do great damage to the crops. I did not do so, but it was a lovely evening. I was facing due west with the big mountains - covered with forest that rise behind Namkham & form one side of this valley - on my right, all a beautiful shade of darkest blue for a new moon & Venus mingling into a wonderfully clear pale green sky. Just as the sun set an elephant trumpeted loudly & clearly & the Kachins said it was a rogue elephant with only one great big tusk that was very dangerous - agee so dai, having killed six of the villagers & severely injured several others.
On the way back to camp my shikari told me that the only elephants known to be in the vicinity were all very dangerous & would charge one on sight; then, for dinner, I had something that disagreed with me, the result that I had a series of frantic hair-raising dreams of colossal charging elephants & woke up on Sunday morning wishing more than ever for a valid excuse to pack up & go back to Sahmaw. You can imagine, therefore, I was anything but pleased when the Headman & his pal turned up to propose taking me into the next village tract to the west where the two elephants had been seen some days before. However, I knew that now it was absolutely essential I should kill an elephant or I would lose confidence & curse myself for evermore.
I don’t know how long this situation lasted, but eventually I believed Jumbo had got rather far ahead so I moved on a bit quicker. I thought I heard him move some distance ahead & then there was silence & I was proceeding as quietly as I could when suddenly not more than 10 yards to my left there was a crash & a loud rustle. I was certain he was coming for me but I couldn’t see him & in a second or two it was evident he was off in another direction. I called up the Kachins & they said he must either have seen or smelt me & that he was only walking & not running as I had thought. Anyhow, it was some walk, as he certainly crashed over several trees & he sounded like a young tornado. I was relieved & felt like going back to camp for breakfast but the Kachins held a consultation & then took me back some considerable way along the route we had come, then branched off down into a muddy nullah (*editor's note: a "gully" or "narrow valley") & up the other side into tree jungle where sure enough we came on Jumbo’s tracks again. They thought he had gone some considerable distance, but we had only proceeded a few hundred yards when they heard him, although I didn’t & so I had to look for him again. I crept forward some little way when suddenly a small bushy tree about 50 yards ahead staggered violently & Mr. Jumbo appeared & then stopped. A shaft of light showed up his back & that was all I could see of him, but after a minute or so he turned in my direction & proceeded to approach slowly. Ye Gods! I squirmed. The head-on shot is the most difficult & I didn’t feel up to it so I looked round hastily & saw a tree on my right & although I had to get through one of those dwarf palms I did it somehow without making much noise & felt better, & when I looked up Jumbo had stopped again.
As a matter of fact, a tree – unless it is a very big one & you are up it – is little or no protection against an elephant if he sees you & is after you. When they are just roaming around for grub elephants knock over trees fully up to 1-foot in diameter, trees which I certainly could climb to a height of 20 feet or so, & what they can do when annoyed I don’t know nor want to see; but in any case, it isn’t their tusks they gore you with, they either give you a terrific sideways flick with their trunk or catch you up and smash you down with it & then proceed to tramp on you. A tree is, therefore, not safe cover, but one does give a feeling of protection.
To return to this particular Jumbo, there he was not more than 20 yards away & facing me & I stared at him, fascinated to see my first wild elephant face to face & wondering if I would be able to hold the rifle steady & hit the right spot should he advance. How long this lasted I don’t know, but I do know that Jumbo seemed to wax in bulk every second until he was a formidable size. Eventually he came forward a few paces & then turned to his left so that I got a proper view of his head & a good opportunity for a shot; but, he had no tusks! What an anticlimax. Fortunately, he just pulled a branch off a tree with his trunk, turned his back & disappeared, crash bang. What made him turn away I don’t know, but I wasn’t sorry. The Kachins were annoyed, however, as they said this Jumbo does a lot of damage to their paddy crops & that he is dangerous & chases them on sight. I don’t know what the technical name for an elephant without tusks is but I know they are fairly common in this latitude & very often are dangerous. Anyhow, I told the Kachins firmly that an elephant without tusks was no use to me & hoped that they did not perceive that I was relieved to have that excuse for not firing a shot, nor that I wished that they would not be able to find a suitable one.
Where we finished up was only about 1 mile from the village so we returned for a late breakfast & that evening I went out to the Kachins paddy fields & sat at an entrance to a hut hoping to get a shot at a wild pig, which do great damage to the crops. I did not do so, but it was a lovely evening. I was facing due west with the big mountains - covered with forest that rise behind Namkham & form one side of this valley - on my right, all a beautiful shade of darkest blue for a new moon & Venus mingling into a wonderfully clear pale green sky. Just as the sun set an elephant trumpeted loudly & clearly & the Kachins said it was a rogue elephant with only one great big tusk that was very dangerous - agee so dai, having killed six of the villagers & severely injured several others.
On the way back to camp my shikari told me that the only elephants known to be in the vicinity were all very dangerous & would charge one on sight; then, for dinner, I had something that disagreed with me, the result that I had a series of frantic hair-raising dreams of colossal charging elephants & woke up on Sunday morning wishing more than ever for a valid excuse to pack up & go back to Sahmaw. You can imagine, therefore, I was anything but pleased when the Headman & his pal turned up to propose taking me into the next village tract to the west where the two elephants had been seen some days before. However, I knew that now it was absolutely essential I should kill an elephant or I would lose confidence & curse myself for evermore.
