Jungle Thrillers

By M. Snilloc

Tales of the thrilling hunt in the Jungles of Africa and India. Tales that can never be written again but will keep on fascinating readers forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Syed Fasih
• Release date: Mar 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224563456

Book preview

JUNGLE THRILLERS

Tales of the Thrilling Hunt in the Jungles of East Africa and India

SNILLOC

ADEEB ONLINE

Copyright © 2024 ADEEB ONLINE

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One; to turn suddenly and find the every epitome of death coming at one from behind: these and other thrilling experiences, highlights in a long career in the jungles of India, Burma and Africa, have lost nothing in the telling by Snilloc, whose pen-craft is too well known to readers in the East to require any introduction.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

M’BOGO-YA-MUNGU

N’JARO’S EYE

TEMBO M’KUBWA

A TALE OF TWO RHINOS

THE KILLER OF RAMPUR

THE END OF THE SEWRI MAN-EATER

THE TOLKABAD TIGER

A JUNGLE DRAMA

THE MAN-EATER OF SATH KURRIAL

HOT STUFF!

THE SILVER LINING

M’BOGO-YA-MUNGU

The Buffalo of God

An East African Hunting Experience

T

here is probably not a single hunter of any pretensions on earth today who has not either heard of, or tried for, one of those extraordinarily cunning animals whose immunity from slaughter is ascribed to divine protection. The thrills of chasing them, of matching one’s wits against theirs, are so great that, even though the contest ends in defeat, it is worth while crossing the world to experience them.

So you can imagine how my blood was fired when N’Jui, than whom no stauncher man or greater scoundrel ever lived, told me about M’Bogo-ya-Mungu, the great buffalo, which lived in the Resounding Valley of Death.

Ah, he is a master of strategy, that one, said N’Jui admiringly. More than a hundred men has he killed, and God, his special protector, alone knows how many more he has wounded. He knows all the tricks of the trade. No bullet or arrow or spear will ever pierce his heart as his horns have pierced the hearts of men. He can differentiate between those who come in peace and those who come in war, and his enemies he lures to their death with a cunning which passes human understanding.

That and a lot more N’Jui told me on a starlit night as we squatted beside a small fire in a sighing Kenya cedar forest, and when I expressed, as he knew for a surety that I would, my intention of going after the beast, he simulated surprise most perfectly.

What! he enquired, his eyes big and round, will you also go and add your name to that death-roll? And even if you do go, bwana, who will go with you? There is no man……"

"You will come with me, N’Jui, I said. Twice you have lied your neck out of the hangman’s noose. A hundred times you have dodged the pangas (big knives), the makookis (spears) and the arrows of your enemies. Surely a mere buffalo is not sufficient to frighten……"

Frighten! he shouted as he sprang to his feet, the splendid muscles rippling under his smooth black skin. "There is nothing on earth that can frighten me, bwana. I fear only Mungu (God). Even the Shaithani, (the devil)... He goggled, looked wildly around and sat down again, drawing his blanket, which he wore togawise, closer around him. But we won’t talk of him, bwana, he continued less boastfully. No good comes of it, especially in a forest and at night!"

Well, to make a long story shorter, we duly started N’Jui the Strong, his brother Kapage the Silent, and myself-in my old Tin Lizzie. Up hill and down dale, through scrub jungle and along grassy flats where roads never existed nor ever will exist, and over boulder-strewn stretches where a city man would think it absolute suicide to drive, we pushed that sturdy old car, till, after a long and tiring trail, we finally hid her in the bush and abandoned her to her own devices for a few days. Some or all of us might never see her again, but that mattered little. We were all hunters, knowing the risk and luck of the great game.

Apportioning the very inconsiderable kit we had brought with us, and with our six mongrels following obediently in our wake, we set out on the long tramp of sixteen miles to the Resounding Valley of Death. A little before sunset we reached it, and I must say that I was surprised. I had been expecting to see a deep, gloomy, rock-bound ravine, girt about with cadaverous, red-necked King Vultures, and floored with bleached bones and grisly skulls, grinning horribly up at me out of the gloom. Instead, in the mellow light of the late afternoon, I saw a fair, shallow valley with knee-high grass fanned into ripples by the evening breeze, and watered by a murmuring brook, whose fine, silver thread was broken by three small isolated clumps of bush.

N’Jui seemed to read my thoughts. "You, bwane, he said smiling as enigmatically as the Sphinx, it does not look like a valley of death. Rather does it look like a valley where the daughters of the gods might come to dance in the moonlight. But that does not alter the fact that beautiful grass is growing through a carpet of blood. The buffaloes know the secret of the valley. They know that when a sound is coming from one clump of bush, it appears to be coming from quite another. They know that a sound which man believes to be coming from in front of him is actually coming from behind. The buffaloes know that peculiarity, and they exploit it. Tomorrow you will see.... when M’Bogo-ya-Mungu chases you!"

Yes, you will se! Kapage the Silent chimed in.

Well, I said laughing as we moved along the edge of the high, sheer-sided plateau from which we had been looking down, If M’Bogo-ya-Mungu chases me, he will chase you to… because I’m taking you with me!

Oh, that won’t matter, said N’Jui off-handedly.

"That grass in the valley, bwana, is like ropes. It wraps itself around a man’s ankles and trips him. But I understand it. I can run in it. You won’t be able to do that. And even if you did succeed in escaping from the buffaloes that way, you wouldn’t be able to climb a tree. Not in those big boots of yours."

No, not in those boots Kapage excelled himself again. "But you can shoot, bwana, said N’Jui, and that will make up