Cain had been an elephant Hunter for decades, somewhere in the dark forests of sub-saharan Africa. The beasts, the elephants, were hunted for ivory and for their meat, and elephant hunters in those days made a lot of money. A 20kg of elephant tusk could fetch something between 20 - 30 thousand pounds, even though the flesh got less. The country where Cain was staying was called Ivory Country because of it's rich supply of ivory.
Cain was an experienced Hunter and had also an experienced hunting party. The instruments with which he killed the elephants were three Express rifles, five Winchester repeaters, a few semi-automatics and other gun types. He lived in a cabin at the edge of the forest, and marketed his wares of ivory and meat to the famous market in town, which, as local lore holds it, was founded the day the town itself was founded.
Cain had a startling experience one morning in the dense forest. He had shot an elephant, they were herded together and when he gave the shot, the herd of elephants dispersed, and made off into the thickets, one of them dripping with blood. He trailed the herd to a deeper part of the dense forest. He hid behind a tree and watched the animals for a while. They seemed to be carrying out some kind of activity. As it turned out, they were infact burying a dead elephant, the one that was hit by Cain's shot, and the entire procession looked so much human. After watching for a while, Cain decided to let them be and withdrew silently to his cabin, his conscience under heavy oppression.
That night he had a hot cup of coffee at his desk in the cabin, thoughts, troubled thoughts, slipping to and fro his mind. He felt like a murderer, and it was the first time he felt like that in sixty years of his life as an elephant hunter.
He was sipping his coffee with slow silent and somehow jerky motions, and brooding deeply. The scene of the mourning elephants he had witnessed reminded him of the funeral of his own mother years ago. The mental image of her suffering in agony on her death bed was still fresh in his mind, and it made him feel all the more bad. He finished his coffee in silence, didn't care much about dinner, and went in for the night.
Next morning he woke to the knocking of one of the hunters that helped him. Apparently the man, named Kadiyi, a native, had brought a message.
We spotted some herd of elephants somewhere deep in the Maginha forest," Kadiyi began. "It appears they are a new species, very large and their ivory is supposed to be worth much more than those of the normal species."
Cain was silent for a while, while his visitor took silent sips from the glass of milk he had offered him. In the city it was considered impolite to offer an early morning visitor anything strong, so milk was considered the best subtitute.
"Ok," he said at length. "How many days before we lose their spur?"
"About five days," said his visitor.
" I will think about it and relay my decision to you on the fourth day. I have not been feeling well for a couple of days now."
And with that the visitor departed.
Cain didn't go on the hunt. He went back to England and when he returned he sold his hunting equipment including the guns. He now became a passionate activist for the protection of endangered wild life species, especially the elephants.
https://pixabay.com/es/photos/elefantes-reba%c3%b1o-safari-279505/
He had a good or enough cause to abandon the business of elephant-hunting and pick up that of protecting the endangered animals and their habitats. First of all because it was inhumane to kill them, and also because the survival of humans on the planet depended on their own survival.
He did this for years until his death some 20 years afterwards. He was referred to as Umeni-Kamebu by the natives, which roughly translates to Protector Of The Wild Beasts.
