Mektoub

In Africa my reaction was the same. In a reputed hunter's paradise I had done little shooting beyond what was required by the needs of my table. I conceived little joy in going out even for big game with a high-powered rifle. I would have preferred more primitive methods. The old native fashion of elephant killing, for instance. A solitary hunter, naked, his body greased with butter, his only arm the same blade that served Fatouma by the hearthstone. He stationed himself in the path of the great beast, wary and alert lest he be trampled underfoot. If the elephant's trunk seized him, he trusted to the oiled surface of his skin to wriggle free again. His play was to attack by surprise, swing the heavy knife with such force that it severed the trunk. His own life, he realized, was the price of that first stroke. If he succeeded, the elephant insane with pain, reared on its hind legs, its body flung backwards as if recoiling from a blow. With lightning swiftness the terrible blade struck again, slashing through the tendons of the

It stretched the imagination to picture myself succeeding at that precarious sport, but the Somali and his knife came much closer to my idea of a hunt than the sunhelmeted European, high-perched on his mirador, with an escort of beaters, boys and guns, and his explosive bullets.