Abigail with her white-horned blesbok bull at the Hotfire property.

By Abigail Prevost

I was not sure what to expect when we stepped off the plane in East London, but I got the feeling that the next two weeks were going to be something incredible – and my gut feeling was correct. We would be leaving with the experience of a lifetime and were already planning to come back in the next few years to this stunningly wild country.

My family and I spent the first two weeks of June in the Eastern Cape of South Africa at Hotfire Safaris, near Cathcart. After being in the air for almost 24 hours and taking three different planes from Calgary and finally to East London, we were all so excited to put our feet on the ground we would be hunting on. After collecting our bags, we were greeted by the two PHs from Hotfire, Pat and Ryan, whose light-hearted banter was the perfect cure for our airplane hangover.

The five of us split into two cars – Ryan took my older brother Jonah and his girlfriend Farrah while Pat took me, my younger brother Spencer, and my father Dean. As we drove the two hours north through the Eastern Cape to reach the property, I was stunned into silence by the beauty of the landscape. Maybe it was because I had never been on the African continent and the geography was so different from the dryness of Southern Alberta and the Canadian Rockies, but each rolling hillside we passed seemed more beautiful than the last. When the sun finally set, the blue sky was quickly replaced with a blanket of stars – more than I had ever seen in one place. I was again in awe of this country I knew so little about.

At Hotfire, we had wonderfully designed tents for accommodations (including heated blankets which was greatly appreciated since we seemed to have forgotten that Canada is not the only country that gets cold in the winter) and a fantastic meal of local game accompanied by an array of delicious traditional side dishes. After dinner, we sat by a roaring fire with Ryan and Pat, getting to know one another. While everyone laughed around the fire, I was feeling a little bit nervous about the hunt the next day – it had been a few months since I’d held a rifle and I worried that I would be out of practice. This was also going to be my first big-game hunt.

The next morning, we headed out for some target practice. After hitting the swinging yellow target 100 meters away a few times, I felt much more confident in my shot.  Then in two cars we were off for our first taste of an African hunt. Ryan took Jonah, Farrah, and a pre-64 model 70 Winchester in .270 to search for a kudu bull and although the rest of us wished him luck, we were secretly hoping that it would be us who got the first animal of the trip.

Within a half hour of leaving target practice, Pat’s tracker Ayunda, had identified a few blesbok in the bush. We made 

our way in, following Pat towards the spot where he and Ayunda had seen it – stopping every so often for Pat to point out various species of wildlife. Then we dropped off Spencer and Dean to wait while Pat and I moved closer to the blesbok. (We found out later that they had got up close and personal with a warthog while we were gone.) Pat handed me the Mauser 98 in .270 with a suppressor, warning me, “It’s live,” before clicking on the safety.

Jonah with his nyala bull on the Hotfire property.

Bent-kneed and hunched over, we slowly crept through the bush with the rocks, trees, and brush giving us cover. When we were as close as we could get without the four blesbok bulls spotting us, Pat spread the shooting sticks and I lifted the rifle onto the stand and got comfortable. Through the scope I could see the four bulls running around, and Pat told me to look for the one whose horns had turned white at the front as that indicated that he was quite an old bull. The blesbok were unaware of our presence but kept hiding behind trees and lying down. After standing ready for a while and realizing the bull was not going to give us a shot from that position, Pat found another angle, and this time when I looked through the scope, I had a broadside shot on the old bull. The nerves started to come back once the safety was switched off and I felt a little shaky. I steadied myself with a deep breath, centered the scope on the spot above his front left leg, and gently squeezed the trigger as I breathed out. I reloaded but in the time that it took me to get a second bullet in the chamber, the bull jumped, then dropped down a few meters away. I could barely hear Pat’s congratulatory, “Nice shot” over my pounding heartbeats from by excitement and shock.

Meanwhile, at the other end of Hotfire, Ryan, Jonah and Farrah were stalking a kudu bull, Jonah’s first animal of the safari. He made such an impressive shot from one cliff across a valley to another cliff that we almost forgot about the truly gruelling trek that it took for us to get up there to help bring the animal down, and it took ten of us all together to carry the bull and the equipment – needless to say that we earned our dinner that night, which again was delicious.

After that first day, we fell into a routine: hunt in the morning, return to camp for lunch, go back out in the afternoon, return to camp, and sit around the fire talking until dinner. It was a routine that I really enjoyed, especially the evening fire. It was the perfect way to close each day’s hunt and wind down for the night.

At the end of our six days of hunting, we each had a trophy and many memories to take home to Canada. But Ryan and Pat were not finished with us just yet – we still had a week to go. We spent the afternoon of our seventh day bird hunting near Stutterheim, camouflaged behind huge stalks of corn. The hunt itself was enhanced by the sun slowly sinking over the horizon till it finally set and colored the sky just above to a faded purple, signalling that it was time to pack up.

Patrick, Ayunda, and Spencer looking for warthogs on the Hotfire property.

Later in the afternoon we came across an Addo elephant. I knew they were big, but I truly had no idea how big until one came up right beside our Land Cruiser and I saw the size of its tusks and the length of its trunk. Though it was moving slowly, each step it took covered a lot of ground.

Spencer with his warthog on the Hotfire property.

From Johannesburg to Port Alfred, we covered a lot of ground in just fourteen days. We went big-game hunting, bird hunting, fly fishing, elephant spotting, and deep-sea fishing – and we can’t wait to come back and do it all again.

By Enrich Hugo

The smoke stings something in the lungs and the ash particles that whirl through the air tickle the nostrils. And occasionally we had to deal with glow around us. In addition to the ash, the air is full of insects and other small crawlies. Wherever you look, there are birds of prey that, in breathtaking maneuvers, catch mice and other small mammals fleeing from the fire.

We were in the north of Uganda, near the border to South Sudan, where the dry grass is being burned down to provide the soil with new nutrients that grow fresh green grass. As well as the abundant waterholes, this nutritious green grass provides the base for a thriving and diverse wildlife in Uganda. The Dark Continent wears many shades of green in Uganda, leaving no doubt as to why it is called the Pearl of Africa.

The starting point of our safari was the Kidepo Valley, where our hunting area is separated from the Kidepo National Park only by a gravel road. Everywhere you looked there were big herds of oribi and Jackson’s hartebeest. But our goal this time is to hunt Nile buffalo, which is only to be hunted in Uganda. It looks very similar to the Cape buffalo that is found in Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana and Tanzania. With a weight of 600 to 700 kilos, the Nile buffalo is about 200 kilos less than the Cape buffalo. It is a shade lighter in color than its stronger, almost black-colored cousin. Significantly more pronounced is the difference in the horn. Generally, the Nile buffalo’s horn is not as wide and has a slight downward curvature. This flatter curl gives it its characteristic beefy appearance.

Normally, I organize and accompany my hunting clients, but this time I was the hunter carrying the rifle. I was with Christian, who has been living in Uganda for years and has made a name as the leading outfitter from Uganda, and we have a long and strong friendship. I was excited and looking forward to hunting with him.

From my numerous hunting trips where I have accompanied my clients in Uganda, I know the hunting area already very well, but nevertheless I am always overwhelmed by the fauna and flora which is offered here. The temperature is extremely pleasant and there are no big differences between day and night as we know in other African hunting countries. The several light rain showers over the year are also a reason for the lush green which covers the country, but do not detract from the hunt. 

We used the first few days of the hunt to get a good overview and we repeatedly encountered large herds of Nile buffalo, which were often more than two hundred head strong, but this time we were on the way to find single bulls. Here, a buffalo is never shot out of a herd. Only old bulls expelled from the herd, known as Dagga Boys, are stalked and shot. These Dagga Boys were usually the lead bulls of their herd for years and have passed down their genetics over time. But even for these strong leadership bulls comes the time when a younger bull takes his place and he is rejected by the herd, and it is precisely this expulsion that makes the buffalo even more dangerous. These loners can no longer rely on the protection of the herd and are on their own.

Of course, the main threat is from lions, which have a much easier time attacking a single buffalo than an animal protected by a herd. Always keeping an eye on these threats makes them nervous, irritable and extremely dangerous. In some cases, several of these Dagga Boys join together in smaller groups. It is these two to five groups you must be extremely careful of.  Irritated, nervous, aggressive and an all-round radar of several pairs of eyes can define a buffalo as Dangerous Game.

We tracked one of these groups, a group of three.  They were still small black dots near the horizon, but the trained eyes of our trackers clearly confirmed them as Dagga Boys. Christian considered the situation, and we briefly discussed it with a tracker. It would not only be reckless and risky to stalk through the head-high grass between us and the buffalo, but it would also be a matter of luck if we stalked almost without knowing where to go. However, the wind was very good for us and Christian sent two of his trackers ahead.

The fire was started in a small depression and Christian explained that there was a small waterhole where the buffalo could safely go to drink. The fire that was placed on the other side of us did not bother them, and as the wind was blowing our way, they did not smell us. And indeed, the three Dagga Boys walked undeterred in our direction. The two trackers joined us and we started our stalk, crouching and often on all fours. Without the protection of the high grass, we had to now proceed very carefully. We used every bush and tree that lay between the buffalo and us to hide behind.

Everywhere there were ash particles from the fire. It smelt of burnt insects, and over our heads flights of hawks and falcons were swooping for food. Again and again Christian stopped to scan with binoculars to see what the buffalo were doing. The careful stalking took much time, but the distance was decreasing between the buffalos and us. Just as Christian foresaw, they were moving towards the waterhole. After another half hour suddenly only two of the three bulls appeared on a small edge of the terrain. Somewhere between the last two smaller hills, number three must have decided to take a break in the shelter of a group of bushes and no longer followed the other two bulls. But we needed to take extra care now. Christian instructed one of the two trackers to wait and keep an eye on this edge of the terrain, and if the third bull should appear to tell us immediately by radio.

After more than three hours of stalking, we were now very close to the waterhole. And at that precise time, the two bulls appeared. The distance was now about 40 meters between us and the buffalo. The terrain in front of us sloped down, and from our cover we could easily watch the two buffalo. Both were very old boys. Numerous scars decorated their faces and bodies, irrefutable witness of many fights with their own kind, but also remains of attacks by lions. Each bull had a huge hard boss emphasizing his age as an old warrior.  But that was not the only thing that stood out. Both bulls had similar massive testicular inflammation. In all my many years as a professional hunter and hunting companion of my hunting clients, I had never have seen anything like it. Christian shook his head and said that it was a first for him. The two must have been in hell of a pain. The testicles were red to purplish-blue and were extremely long and swollen. There was no doubt that my goal should be to kill both and free them from their agony.

I had an open sight rifle without a scope in .460 Weatherby with Mauser system, with two cartridges in the magazine and one already in the barrel. Christian as backup carried a .500 Jeffery. By now the two bulls seemed to become nervous. I do not think they were aware of us, but it may be that they have sensed a predator. I decided to take the first shot on the right buffalo. My instinct told me that the other buffalo would turn to the left and escape to the open side of the terrain. Christian was ready as my insurance.

My first shot broke and the first buffalo went down where he stood. Automatically I reloaded. The second buffalo stopped after only 10 meters to see what had happened behind him. He took two steps towards the fallen buffalo, giving me enough time to take him too. The .460 Weatherby had done a great job. After a short wait in our cover, we went to inspect the beasts, and up close the inflammation looked a lot worse than we had already seen.

We took some tissue samples which Christian later handed over to the National Park Authority. One thing was certain. The game meat that is usually handed over to the local population to provide them with much-needed protein would be destroyed in this case, and the two buffaloes left to the vultures. For safety, Christian still ordered three park rangers to guard the carcasses until only the bones were left. He did not want to take any risks in case some people from the neighboring villages decided to acquire some pieces of meat.

For me, but also for Christian, this hunt goes down in our hunting history books. Both for him in Uganda and for me personally, it was the first double with two buffalos.  It could not have been better.

Once again, this proves that ethical hunting is a main tool of conservation.

By Kevin Cunningham

It is almost a cliché to say that hunting Cape Buffalo is special. For me it began, curiously enough, many years ago hunting whitewing dove in Mexico with Ralf. Ralf was a successful, greying guy who loved the hunting and fishing life, and who was fortunate enough to have safaried in Africa from the time he was twelve years old. After a hot day of shooting doves, he and I would sip icy margaritas and he would reminisce about hunts and the animals he had taken – hissing crocs, trumpeting elephants, roaring lions, hyenas, baboons, leopards, horned plains game of every sort, and Cape buffalo. To my youthful ears it sounded like high adventure and a test of personal courage. Ralf had been everywhere and stalked everything, but he always came back for buff because, he said, they live up to their reputation for exchanging human damage for a poorly placed shot, and for fighting to the end, especially when they knew who killed them!

Fast forward thirty years to a lion-colored grass airstrip in the Save Valley of Zimbabwe. The little Cessna bumped down onto the hard dirt and came to idle in the shade under a towering baobab tree. When the engine shut off, all I could hear was the sound of the wind blowing a dust devil down the runway. A Toyota pickup drove to the plane. The driver got out, a junior professional hunter, introduced himself and me to the trackers, then loaded my gear. We watched the plane lift off over the tree line and turn north. I looked at the red ground and crackling dry landscape of thornbush and tan-barked trees with new green leaves brought on by early November rains. The horizon in every direction seemed 100 miles away. There was no sign of man. A lone silhouette of an elephant lumbered across the far end of the airstrip casting a silent shadow before the setting sun. I was back in big buffalo country, and only the fates knew what would happen over the next ten days.

After zeroing my rifles, we arrived at Sango Conservancy. This is the famed reserve of the Pabst Brewing Company family. It is managed to the highest standards in terms of protecting and preserving wild African animals in their free-range habitat and in a sustainable manner that includes very limited hunting. The hunts they allow are under strict quota and are conducted only with select PHs. The money raised helps to support anti-poaching, wildlife studies, and the feeding and livelihood of the workers and their communities. Those funds represent only a portion of the total personal cost to the owners in their continuing and tireless efforts to preserve 150,000 acres (60,000 hectares) of pristine African habitat and its precious wildlife.

Ingwe Camp, mine for this hunt, is a private camp, so I had the place to myself except for staff and my PH who stayed in a thatched bungalow across the compound.  I was greeted by staff with a tray of iced melon juice and cookies and shown around. Boss Rob, my PH, would be back shortly as he was attending business at headquarters. I stowed my gear and headed to the bar for an anesthetic after the 34-hour trek from Texas to Zim via Doha, Qatar. I settled into a leather chair on the veranda, watching the last light of sunset filter over the veld, sipped my iconic South African drink – a double brandy and Coke – and relaxed in proper bwana fashion.

A truck ground to a halt and a door slammed. In strode my friend and PH Rob Lurie. I had met Rob two years before under unfortunate circumstances. My previous PH,

Phil Smyth, had been killed by an elephant. Rob had stepped in along with other generous PHs to pick up Phil’s booked hunts for the benefit of Phil’s family, and so I had hunted the Senuko camp, about fifty kilometers down valley, with him the following year. We hit it off, and so when he called to offer me a hunt at Sango that another client had cancelled, I jumped at it.

Rob is head of the distinguished Zimbabwe Professional Guides Association. Though I have hunted with wonderful PHs from other parts of Africa I have been impressed with the professionalism that Zimbabwean PHs display as a result of their rigorous training and licensing program. Just ask any learner Zimbabwean PH what they have to go through to get a full license to escort clients into harm’s way. You would sooner sign up for Marine Corps boot camp and a couple of years in green hell than go the distance they go to get their ticket. Like Rob, the PHs I have had the privilege and honor to hunt with, are dedicated to preserving an ancient way of life. I got to share that life for the next ten days.

After a lovely dinner, more than enough Stellenbosch wine and catching up with Rob, I turned off my bedside lamp and sank into crisp sheets under a mosquito net. It was pitch dark. I listened to the trickle of the stream in the gully below and the chirping and calling of the night creatures. I thought of my rifles, going through a mental checklist – Dakota .416 Rigby bolt action with a new Swarovski Z8i 1.7-13×42 red dot scope for old eyes needing lots of light in often shadowy environments. For years my Z6i had served me well, but the improvements of technology over time enticed me into the new optics. They say in Africa, shoot the largest caliber you can shoot well. I chose the .416 Rigby as it is a legendary caliber for tough African dangerous game. I shot this rifle confidently and killed efficiently and humanely.  My other rifle on this hunt was a new, out-of-the box Hill Country Rifles custom .224 Valkyrie with a Z8i scope for smaller game. I had brought thirty rounds of ammo for each. For buffalo I prefer custom loads – 20 soft and 10 solids from Safari Arms with Swift A-Frame bullets – or whatever is next best available in the post-Covid market. Nothing against production ammo, but if I have the cash and order time, I want to know I have the best. For dangerous game, failure is not an option!

The morning knock-knock came at 4.00 along with a pot of coffee. An hour later, Rob and the team were waiting at first light with the truck.

Day one is always a wakeup call. This was real. I was jet-lagged. My shoes were stiff. I was not used to the new sling. I had conveniently forgotten the effect on my arms and shoulders of carrying what is a rather heavy rifle. That first walk of the morning was not like strolling to the shooting bench at home. My muscles were not in shape to follow much younger men all day. No taking a coffee break and chatting with a friend before going to lunch. A sip of water and let’s get on with it! That first day was meant to see how I walked in the bush, how I behaved, how I handled my rifle. By evening I was beat, but hopefully Rob could see that I was getting my muscle memory back, leaving my other life behind and getting mentally into the work at hand.

Over the next few days we bundu-bashed. Rob and I were in the cab while our trackers and game scout were above us on the top rack and bench where they could see what we could not. Around us monolithic grey boulders stacked up into kopjes. We bundled warmly in the early mornings and sweated in the afternoons, heads on constant swivel for sign and animals. There were the occasional close calls with unhappy elephants, appearing and disappearing lions, menacing shadows moving through the trees, and crocs feasting like Jaws on giraffe legs from the one that I had shot for bait. We ambushed a pair of klipspringers, and the trophy ram dropped to the shot from the .224. With that and a well-placed shot from the .416 on that old bull giraffe the day before, I was feeling good on the gun.

Fortunately, Rob said the island was too dangerous to hunt. In it were poachers’ snares that caught and wounded elephants, buffalo, lion and leopard. Bumping into predators while hunting wounded animals in those tight quarters or, even worse, meeting wounded animals themselves, could be considered a life-altering experience. For once I was pleased to be excluded from the git-go!

As we stood on that riverbank looking at Monster Island (my name for it), I looked behind and around us and noticed the trackers doing the same. We were standing in a tunnel of twenty-foot-high reeds and tangled vines, no different from on Monster Island. I was last in line, so I watched our rear, wondering what shooting at close range in that tangle would be like with a scoped rifle.

We crept back out. I began to relax when we got back to the truck until I looked at Rob as he hurriedly started the truck and revved the engine. He was staring hard at a young cow with calf that was barreling down the narrow lane which was to be our exit 40 meters ahead. She came ears flared, trunk held high, and trumpeting. Behind us was another group of clearly nervous head-swinging bulls. I envisioned jumping from the truck at the last second before the inevitable collision, but luckily the cow suddenly backed off for a moment to check on her baby hidden in the bush nearby. Rob wasted no time in scooting past her with spinning tires and throwing up a cloud of dust.  I looked right into her eyes through Rob’s window as we passed.

 I am in no way a professional hunter. I have read Capstick and Boddington and John Taylor and whatever else I could find about African hunting. This time I was hunting my sixth Cape buffalo. I have spent hours looking through binos, hunkered down in grass or behind a termite mound. I have sat around fires talking to PHs and other buffalo lovers about what makes a great trophy. Early on I thought “wide” was the way to go, and then “drop” became the object. I got my “wide” in the Eastern Cape of South Africa and was lucky to have it rank 165 of the many buffalo recorded as of July 2019 in the SCI records. Now, after seven years of chasing them, I only hunt Daggas. Old warriors with fighting scars on their faces and necks, lion claw streaks on their backs, chunks of their hocks torn out by chewing beasts, healed in thick masses. I want to see dropped horns down low to their ears and lots of grey mascara under drooping and wrinkled eyes. I search for a boss that looks like the burl of an ancient oak. I hunt for a “character.”  A helmet of broken horn and one eye would be perfect! Past breeding age, they wander alone or in twos or threes, no longer fighting for herd dominance or breeding rights; they fight to survive another day unprotected except for maybe a loyal mate nearby. I have developed an affinity for them, a kinship that perhaps comes with my advancing age, knowing that there are no hospices in the bush and that the end can come unmercifully slower than from a well-placed bullet. Rob knows what to look for. I trust him when we have stalked two bulls through a searing afternoon only for him to call me off the sticks at the last moment because neither of them is a “proper Dagga.” All I want to hear is a whisper: “He’s a shooter!”

And so around 4.30 in the afternoon on the sixth day of the hunt, I put my boots back on swollen feet, bent down to stretch an aching lower back, and fumbled with my shoe laces with hands and arms stiffened from toting the .416. I was definitely on the old man side of the equation.

A buffalo had attacked some camp staff not far from our compound the night before. The same buff had chased a man up a tree two days ago in the same area just down by the creek. Rob thought that the culprit might still be in the neighborhood, so we were back in the truck. Sure enough, we cut two Daggas’ tracks in the road not a mile from camp. Rob switched off the engine and we rolled to a stop. The tracks were fresh and big.

As I stepped out of the truck, I put a round into my rifle’s chamber and felt my gut tighten.  I took two deep breaths, checked that I was on safety and fell in behind Rob and our lead tracker. What I like is that generally the stalk is a slow affair.  My legs are not what they used to be. Slow is good.  Making as little noise as possible I looked down, watching the heels of Rob’s boots as we angled down a forested hill towards the creek. I tried to step where he stepped and stop when he stopped. My heart picked up rpms as our progress got slower and more deliberate, until it was two or three steps, then stop and wait, a few more steps, stop and wait.

Then we stopped still. Rob looked through his binos, peering around a tree trunk. He slowly turned and smiled at me.

The lead tracker moved silently to a large boulder fifteen meters in front of us and slowly peered over the top. He froze. I could feel everyone’s tension rise. I concentrated on looking at Rob’s back in front of me, slowing my breathing to try to relax. Rob quicky moved forward and I followed close on. We reached the boulder. By hand signals the tracker told Rob that the companion buff had run away, but the older one was just on the other side of our boulder, perhaps twenty meters away and not seeing us because of the rock. However, the animal seemed to know something was afoot and was motionless. To our left at the far end of the rock was a small gully that opened into a hollow about four meters across. If the buff chose to go forward, he would emerge into that hollow to our left. In that case I would have a shot at him broadside from about 15 meters. Rob and I crept to that end of the rock and put up the sticks. Rob looked up to the tracker who by now was crouched about three meters above us on top of the rock, looking straight down at the buff just on the other side. The tracker’s hand fluttered.

“He is coming!” Rob whispered, this time clear urgency in his voice. “Get ready!”

I checked my safety to be sure it was at the half-on position. I gripped the fore end of the Dakota firmly in the V of the sticks and made sure my power was on low setting. Looking through the reticle down into the narrow hollow I could see the spot where I imagined the bull would step out. I waited, but nothing happened. I slowed my breathing again and stared through my scope, trying to blink as little as possible. Another minute passed. Rob gestured to the tracker above who signaled back that the animal was just standing still again, listening, smelling, sensing. Just then the tracker changed his hand, pointing in the opposite direction. The buff had turned around and was now moving back down the alleyway from where he had come. Rob and I moved quickly, resetting the sticks on a level place at the end of the boulder where the buff had first been observed. We were about a meter above ground level, but still partially hidden by rock, looking down at the place the buff where should now come out. I again set up on the sticks and waited. Events after that took on a dreamlike, almost like slow motion, but still quickly.

The buff emerged into a grassy area. I was on the sticks, moving my red dot around deliberately to find his center mass. He was facing us head down, eating little shoots of brilliantly green grass. He was lit up black and gold by the rays of the setting sun still bright over our shoulders. He looked up in our direction then turned slightly to his left in a quartering position. Rob hissed, “Now! Right on the shoulder.”

I shot. The red dot and all around it exploded in my reticle. The buffalo lurched forward instantly and came at us. I jacked another round into the rifle and shot at his hindquarter as he blindly plowed within a few meters of us, passing by our rock. I shot again, this time a raking shot from behind at 12 meters. With that he turned back towards us, coming to a stop at six meters from my rifle muzzle. For the briefest moment he looked up directly at us then turned broadside. At this point my scope was worthless as far as aim, so I looked over it, pulled the rifle in tight to my shoulder and basically shot-gunned my last round into his side just aft of his shoulder. In my peripheral vision I could see Rob’s double at ready in case the buff leapt onto the rock at us, but my last shot had turned him away. He trotted up the hillside near us. At about thirty meters he stopped in the shadow of a massive baobab tree and just stood there, blowing a mist of red with each deep breath. I could hear Rob saying, “Reload.” As I did so, the beast began to sway but his staunch legs would not buckle.

“Again. Shoot again,” Rob said.

This time I took careful aim on the sticks and put the last one just behind the shoulder crease halfway up the chest. He did not even flinch. The great head rose. He looked up at the tree and lay down. Still tossing his horns at his unseen enemy he bellowed once, then again, and all went still.

It is said in Mashonaland that only great chiefs may be buried under a baobab tree. The greater the chief, I suppose, the greater the baobab. When it is my time there will be no baobab. But I will always carry with me the memory of this valiant old chief and his tree, a sad, but good thing.

Ralf would have understood.