‘The game scout was in a bad way, he had a horn through the side of his stomach, a horn through the top of his right shoulder, and the entire back of his thigh muscle had been ripped off right up to his buttocks… it looked bloody ugly.’ PH Craig Robinson in conversation with the writer about game scout Hungwe’s goring by a buffalo in the Gonarezhou National Park.
Throughout my lengthy bush career, it never ceased to amaze me how much physical punishment, by way of serious injuries, remote dwelling tribal Africans are able to absorb, and in many cases miraculously survive. There are numerous accounts of game scouts and trackers (while not excluding tribal poachers) being mauled, stomped, and gored to within an inch of their lives, and yet they survive. More often than not after hours of being transported over bumpy, dusty roads to a distant clinic with extremely
