(Featured image by David Bygott)

INTRODUCTION

This is the story of Clary Palmer-Wilson, born in Nairobi, East Africa in 1907. At the age of 14 he began earning his livelihood as a hunter in the East African bush where dangers lurked everywhere and mistakes carried severe consequences. Unable to survive by hunting alone, he tried mining during a gold rush, became a car mechanic, farmed, and took on any other task that paid enough to keep him going. Eventually, he tried settling down to a normal life with a regular job, even though he still felt the call of wild. East Africa’s time as a wild game paradise was winding down. But Clary was too old to change. He lived to hunt. 

Clary Palmer-Wilson was a legend in his own time, credited with the world’s record buffalo and a massive elephant named The Crown Prince. Despite being asthmatic and allergic to over 150 substances, he became a sought-after hunting guide. 

(Artist: Gregg Davies)

From 1920 to 1973, during Clary’s hunting days, Tanganyika (now Tanzania) was a very different country. Beyond the towns and larger villages huge tracts of land teemed with wildlife. (In 1965, the country had 1,200,000 elephants.) Raw, untamed Africa started just beyond the front door, and the understaffed and overworked wildlife department was grateful for any help they could get in controlling marauding animals. Clary, a professional hunter, often assisted in game control measures but never shot an animal for sport, only for food or to earn his living. 

This is a historic account of one man living an unusual life in East Africa. Such a life would not be possible today.

(Adapted from Ric Palmer-Wilson. The Legend of a Hunter in a Bygone Era. Published in 2023 by Amazon.com.)

Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania). Tanga is in the northeastern corner, opposite the island of Pemba. 

(Shakki. GNU Free Documentation license.) 

1924. Somewhere west of Tanga.

Clary Palmer-Wilson lay dying on a rickety wooden sisal-rope bed in the village headman’s mud and wattle hut.  Seventeen years-old and miles from medical help, his only comfort was the thatched-palm roof that kept the room dark and cool from the fierce African sun. Dark red blood oozed through his khaki shirt, which he had torn into strips to make temporary bandages for his shredded legs.  Outside the hut, a dozen natives gathered to witness the last moments of the young man who had tried to save their dwindling goat herd from a spotted devil—a leopard. Instead, he had become a victim himself. 

Clary’s gun bearer, Musa, however, still held out hope. Wearing only a tucked-up loincloth, he set off at a fast trot to fetch Clary’s father William in far-off Tanga.

It had all started few days previously in the coastal town of Tanga when a delegation from the village asked Clary for help. The game department had refused because it was too busy keeping buffaloes away from the local railway station and elephants from native shambas (gardens). (In one moonless night elephants could destroy a family’s entire season’s food crop.)  Intrigued, Clary accepted the challenge, although it was more for the love of hunting than for saving goats. Taking up his double-barreled 400 Jeffrey rifle and a war-surplus 303, he casually informed his father. “I’ll be back in a day or two. Make room for a leopard skin rug somewhere.”

Setting out at dawn, Clary and Musa (Arabic for Moses) reached the village in mid-morning. Soon thereafter, Clary found himself crawling through a small patch of dense thicket near the village, frequently stopping to crouch and tensely peer around. He had seen the leopard’s spoor entering the thicket. He could smell its pungent odor. But where was it? Eventually deciding the leopard was gone, Clary climbed atop a termite mound to see over the top of the thicket.  Holding the muzzle of his rifle in one hand and shading his eyes with the other he scanned across the surrounding grassland for other thickets that might harbor the large feline goat-killer. Then, out of the corner of his eye the young hunter saw an ear twitch, and suddenly there it was—yellow-eyes, black tipped ears, shiny dark nose above sharp teeth bared in a half snarl—leopard! At Clary’s very feet! 

Taken by surprise, Clary, still holding the gun by its muzzle, leapt backwards, landed on his back, jumped up and fought his way through the thicket into the open where he whirled to fire at the pursuing cat—which wasn’t there. Glancing at the villagers waiting nearby, he wondered what they were thinking. (Witnessing his wild rush from the thicket, his ragged hair standing on end and his khaki clothes littered with dry leaves and broken twigs, they were wondering if the devil leopard hadn’t taken possession of him, too.) 

“I´ll get that big cat out of there now, good and dead”, he said to himself, although loud enough for all to hear. 

Exchanging his heavy rifle for the 303, he tried to flush the cat out by firing into the bushes where he had last seen it. Shot after shot ripped into the thicket. However, none induced a single sound or movement from the leopard. Clary knew that, if wounded, the leopard would have growled loudly or charged. If dead, it was somewhere in the thicket. If alive, it was somewhere there and very annoyed. He also knew that he, the brave hunter, the village savior, had to go back in to settle the question.  Taking up the 400 Jeffery’s rifle, he nervously inched back into the thicket toward the termite mound. 

Lee-Enfield 303 rifle used in the First World War. It was capable of 20-30 shots per minute in the hands of a highly trained rifleman

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.)

With his gun at the ready, he searched the bushes near the termite mound, circling it completely before climbing up to peer into the surrounding thicket. Dangling branches showed green gashes where they had been struck by 303 bullets.  Gouges in the fresh earth bore testimony to the same cause. But nothing else was noticeable and nothing moved. 

Suddenly, there it was again, that heart-stopping ear twitch of a live leopard!

And, once again, right at his feet, Clary saw an angry cat with flattened ears, fiery eyes, and a snarling mouth. But this time he was ready. Swinging the gun down, he pulled both triggers at once. “Boom! Boom!” Dust and sand exploded everywhere. He’d missed!  

With a short, guttural growl the enraged leopard leaped, knocking Clary off the mound to sprawl under a tangle of low-lying branches.  Fortunately, they blocked the savage cat from reaching his neck and face. Still on his back, he pulled the gun free of the bushes, reloaded, and jammed it through the branches into the leopard’s neck. Then he squeezed both triggers hard. To his horror, his rifle did not fire. Instead, the enraged cat seized the gun barrel in its jaws, at the same time clawing Clary with its razor-sharp claws, shredding his trousers and legs. 

In excruciating pain and high on adrenalin, he again squeezed both gun triggers, this time with all his strength, yet the only sound was leopard teeth breaking on gunmetal. The smell of fresh blood driving it on, the cat lunged closer to Clary’s jugular. Holding the animal at bay with the gun barrel, Clary screamed for help from the men outside. Jolted into action, they responded by lighting bunches of dry grass and hurling them into the bushes, setting fire to the dry underbrush. They threw Doum palm nuts in all directions.  They shouted like madmen. They beat the bushes with long sticks to cause maximum distraction. 

And their efforts paid off, causing the enraged leopard to retreat into the thick vegetation. However, danger was not yet over because the fire set by the villagers was moving with increasing speed and intensity towards Clary, who, severely wounded, could barely move. Yelling above the roar of the fire, he attracted the attention of the men who hacked a path through the bushes to where he lay. Lifting him up, they stumbled back to safe ground. Then, seeing his wounds, they took him to the headman’s hut. 

—To be continued—