Thread: Karamojo Bell article

Originally Posted by Ryan

Thanks Grame but it's actually a claw.

Well blow me down. A tooth on a swivel arm. It looked like a big sharks tooth to me.

Unless you were Harry Wolhuter one rarely had any chance of surviving if they didn't have support.

The story of Wolhuter is a South African classic which I read as a young lad in more detail than the link provides. He was a "meneer" (boss).

It was interesting that when over there I found that Bell did not have a great name. I have met a few elderly experienced hunters in Africa who did not like Bell at all. I was told that he would regularly shoot a lot of the elephants in the herd in the knees with the 6.5 and go back and finish them off later. No matter how big you are you cannot run far after your knees have been taken out. He apparently did not write about those actions in his books.................

I have been delving into this box of papers of Bill Axbey's who wrote extensively about the NZ elephant hunter Deaf Banks.

There are letters from University's, Museums in both Africa Europe and Britain. Copies of Banks Letters that Bill says were trotted half way the length of Africa in a cleft stick. Photos, maps letters from school friends and his old school. Photos and sales brochures of guns of the trade and all that stuff.

Banks fought in Africa in the First World War. Besides the tally he may have acquired in this conflict, Banks when interviewed said he had shot around 3000 elephants. That is one hell of a lot of elephants. I have worked with a few shooters that have shot that many deer and I know that is a hell of a lot of deer.