Delectations

Buckley Charlton, in the wisdom of his six years, had put his finger on it. My brother John and I were about to take off for Mozambique on a hunting safari to the wonderment of the young male Charltons. Tommy, who is eight, and informed, had been carrying the conversation, asking intelligent questions. Buckley wanted in. He warned me against quicksand and then, not having gotten the desired reaction, gave a final admonition. “Aunt Priscilla,” he said, “if you see a rhinoceros, don’t step on his nose. Rhinos don’t like that!” What worried Buckley was the element of danger and he didn’t even know that when you shoot an elephant you should do so from within twenty yards—that’s just 720 inches— or that you can shoot a water buffalo in the heart and sometimes he’s made Hungarian goulash out of you before he knows he’s dead. (Safrique, the excellent outfit that ran our safari, neglected to suggest to John and to me that we brush up on our tree climbing before hitting the bush.)

A week had passed and John and I were now old safari hands, so inured to our new schedule that we hadn’t even blinked when Virgilio Garcia, our PWH (Professional White Hunter), informed us that we’d have to get up at 4:30 A.M.—half an hour earlier than usual—tobeina lion blind by dawn (blink we didn’t; groan we did). Things were already starting to go wrong (that’s the effect John and I frequently have catalytically on things). That night at dinner Mario, the houseboy, had brought in the soup resplendent in white mess jacket with epaulets and gold buttons and black, splayed, bare feet. “What happened to your shoes?” asked Garcia—Garcia had a temper that it took matters less grave than the quality of my shooting to trigger. The gist of the conversation—carried on in rapid Portuguese, and in dialect—was that someone had quoted Mario a good price for his shoes so he had sold them. “You don’t serve the clients without shoes,” shouted Garcia, “get them back.” So it was a properly shod Mario who brought the steaming coffee and fresh orange juice to our beds the following morning, but he was late—very late. He explained that the gentleman who is the custodian of the sole alarm clock and consequently the cranker-up of the generator that turns the lights— and us—on, had rolled into camp royally sloshed well after dawn. In consequence the sun was not only rising in the East but practically setting in the West when we started out. The lions would be far gone by then but we went to check anyway and en route Blondie, the goodlooking head tracker, called a halt. He and the two skinners jumped out, wandered off looking here and there at the ground, casting about for tracks, picking up a leaf, focusing on the bark of a tree. He came back and talked softly to Garcia in dialect. A leopard. A big leopard had been hunting the area.

PL

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Priscilla L. Buckley

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Buckley Charlton, in the wisdom of his six years, had put his finger on it. My brother John and I were about to take off for Mozambique on a hunting safari to the wonderment of the young male Charltons. Tommy, who is eight, and informed, had been carrying the conversation, asking intelligent questions. Buckley wanted in. He warned me against quicksand and then, not having gotten the desired reaction, gave a final admonition. “Aunt Priscilla,” he said, “if you see a rhinoceros, don’t step on his nose. Rhinos don’t like that!” What worried Buckley was the element of danger and he didn’t even know that when you shoot an elephant you should do so from within twenty yards—that’s just 720 inches— or that you can shoot a water buffalo in the heart and sometimes he’s made Hungarian goulash out of you before he knows he’s dead. (Safrique, the excellent outfit that ran our safari, neglected to suggest to John and to me that we brush up on our tree climbing before hitting the bush.)

A week had passed and John and I were now old safari hands, so inured to our new schedule that we hadn’t even blinked when Virgilio Garcia, our PWH (Professional White Hunter), informed us that we’d have to get up at 4:30 A.M.—half an hour earlier than usual—tobeina lion blind by dawn (blink we didn’t; groan we did). Things were already starting to go wrong (that’s the effect John and I frequently have catalytically on things). That night at dinner Mario, the houseboy, had brought in the soup resplendent in white mess jacket with epaulets and gold buttons and black, splayed, bare feet. “What happened to your shoes?” asked Garcia—Garcia had a temper that it took matters less grave than the quality of my shooting to trigger. The gist of the conversation—carried on in rapid Portuguese, and in dialect—was that someone had quoted Mario a good price for his shoes so he had sold them. “You don’t serve the clients without shoes,” shouted Garcia, “get them back.” So it was a properly shod Mario who brought the steaming coffee and fresh orange juice to our beds the following morning, but he was late—very late. He explained that the gentleman who is the custodian of the sole alarm clock and consequently the cranker-up of the generator that turns the lights— and us—on, had rolled into camp royally sloshed well after dawn. In consequence the sun was not only rising in the East but practically setting in the West when we started out. The lions would be far gone by then but we went to check anyway and en route Blondie, the goodlooking head tracker, called a halt. He and the two skinners jumped out, wandered off looking here and there at the ground, casting about for tracks, picking up a leaf, focusing on the bark of a tree. He came back and talked softly to Garcia in dialect. A leopard. A big leopard had been hunting the area.