A DAY ON THE ATHI RIVER
In spite of all our difficulties, rapid progress continued to be made
with the line. Each day railhead crept a mile or so further across the
Plains, and on April 24 we reached the Stony Athi River, where our
great camp was pitched for a few days while the temporary bridge was
being thrown across the dry bed of the stream. Still another temporary
bridge had to be arranged for the Athi itself, which was some eight
miles further on, so I had to make one or two expeditions to this river
in order to select a suitable place for the crossing and to make
various other arrangements. On one of these occasions I was busy
attending to the pitching of my tent after arriving at the Athi late in
the evening, when on looking round I was very much surprised to see two
European ladies sitting under the shade of some trees on the river
bank. As I knew that this was anything but a safe place in which to
rest, owing to the number of lions about, I went up to them to see if I
could be of any assistance, and found that they were American
missionaries journeying to their stations further inland. They were
waiting for their camp equipment to arrive, but their porters had been
considerably delayed by some very heavy rain, which of course made the
roads bad and the tents about double their usual weight. The men of the
party were expected every moment with the porters, but there was as yet
no sign of the little caravan, and as a matter of fact it did not
arrive until long after nightfall. In these circumstances it was
perhaps a great blessing that I happened to be there; and as the ladies
were both very tired and hungry, I was glad to be able to place my tent
at their disposal and to offer them as good a dinner as it was possible
to provide in the wilds. It is indeed wonderful what dangers and
hardships these delicately nurtured ladies will face cheerfully in
order to carry out their self-appointed mission.
When they had left next morning to resume their journey, I started out
and made a search up and down the river for the proper position for my
temporary bridge. After a thorough examination of all the possible
situations, I chose the most suitable and pitched my tent close to it
for a night or two while I made the necessary calculations for carrying
out the work. The crossing on which I had decided had to be approached
by a somewhat sharp curve in the line, and in laying this out with the
theodolite I experienced considerable difficulty, as for some reason or
other I could not make the last peg on the curve come anywhere near the
tangent point where the curve should link up with the straight. I
repeated the whole operation time after time, but always with the same
result. Eventually I came to the conclusion that there must be some
mistake in the table of angles from which I had been working, so I
started to work them out for myself and soon discovered a serious
misprint. This being rectified in my calculations, I proceeded to lay
out the curve again, when at last everything came out accurately and to
my satisfaction.
After I had pegged out this temporary diversion of the line, I thought
I richly deserved a few hours' play, and accordingly determined to try
my luck after lions up-stream towards the source of the Athi. The
river--which runs almost due north here, before taking a turn eastward
to the Indian Ocean--forms part of the western boundary of the Athi
Plains, and is fringed all along its course by a belt of thorny
hardwood trees. In some places this fringe is quite narrow, while in
others it is about a quarter of a mile wide, with grassy glades here
and there among the trees. Every now and again, too, the stream itself
widens out into a broad stretch of water, nearly always covered over
with tall reeds and elephant grass, while along the banks are frequent
patches of stunted bushes, which struck me as very likely places for
the king of beasts to sleep in after having drunk at the river. I had
noticed that after having eaten and drunk well, a lion would throw
himself down quite without caution in the first shady spot he came to;
of course nothing except man ever disturbs him, and even of man the
lions in this part of the country had as yet no fear, for they had
rarely if ever been hunted previous to my time.
As I felt rather tired after my morning's work, I decided to use my
pony on this expedition, although as a rule I went on foot. Mahina and
half-a-dozen natives to beat the belt of trees were to accompany me,
and after a hasty lunch off we started up the left bank of the river. I
walked for some distance at first, partly because the ground was very
stony and partly because I thought a lion might suddenly bound out of
some likely patches in front of the beaters; but after having gone
about six miles in this way without adventure of any kind, I decided to
mount again. At this time the beaters were in line about a hundred
yards behind me, shouting and halloing with all their might as they
advanced through the scrub and undergrowth, while I rode well to the
flank so as to be ready for any emergency. Just as the men got up to a
rather thicker piece of jungle than usual, I fancied I saw a movement
among the bushes and pulled up suddenly to watch the spot, but did not
dismount. The next moment out bounded a lioness, who raced straight
across the open strip into the next patch of jungle, quickly followed
by another. Throwing myself off my pony, I seized my rifle to get a
shot at the second lioness as she galloped past, and was just about to
pull the trigger, when to my utter amazement out sprang a huge
black-maned lion, making all haste after his mates. Before he could
reach the further thicket, however, I fired, and had the satisfaction
of hearing the deep growl that tells of a serious hit.
The beaters and I now advanced with great care, taking advantage of
every bit of cover and keeping a sharp look-out for the wounded animal
as we crept from tree to tree. Fully a quarter of an hour must have
elapsed in this slow yet exciting search, before one of the men, some
fifty or sixty yards to my left, and a little ahead of the line, called
out that he could see the lion awaiting our approach, with his head
just visible in a large bed of rushes only a short distance in front of
where I then was. Almost at the same moment I found blood marks left by
the wounded animal, leading apparently to a kind of gap in the bank of
the river, which had evidently been worn down by a rhino going to and
fro to drink. I accordingly made for this with the greatest caution,
ordering all the men, except Mahina, to remain behind; and as
noiselessly as possible I slipped from cover to cover in my endeavour
to obtain a peep over the bank. I saw that it was no use to attempt to
climb a tree, as the overspreading foliage would have prevented me from
obtaining any view ahead; so I continued my slow advance with a
fast-beating heart, not knowing where the huge brute was and expecting
every moment that he would charge out at me over the bank from his
reedy refuge. Emboldened to a certain extent, however, by the fact that
up till then I had heard no movement on the part of my enemy, I crept
steadily forward and at last, from the shelter of a friendly tree
behind the bole of which I hid myself, I was able to look over the
bank. And there, not twenty yards from me, crouched the lion--luckily
watching, not me, but the native who had first seen him and who had
directed me to where he was. I raised my rifle very cautiously, without
making the slightest sound, and steadying the barrel against the trunk
of the tree and standing on tip-toe in order to get a better view, I
fired plump at the side of his head. It was as if he had suddenly been
hit with a sledgehammer, for he fell over instantly and lay like a log.
On my calling out that the lion was done for, the beaters came running
up shouting with joy; and although I warned them to be careful, as the
two lionesses were probably still close at hand, they did not seem to
care in the slightest and in a twinkling had the dead lion lifted from
the reeds on to the dry bank. Before I allowed anything further to be
done, however, I had the patch of rushes thoroughly beaten out: but as
no traces of the lionesses could be found, we commenced to skin my fine
trophy. When this was about half done, I decided to let Mahina finish
the operation, while I went on ahead to try my luck either with more
lions or with any other game that might come my way. I followed up the
river almost to its source, but no more lions crossed my path. Once
indeed I felt convinced that I saw one, and gave chase to it with all
my might as it rushed through the long grass: but a nearer view showed
me nothing more than a huge wart-hog. As I wanted the tusks, which I
noticed were very fine ones, I fired but only badly hipped him: so I
ran up as fast as I could and at ten yards fired again. This time I
missed him entirely, and was puzzled to account for my failure until I
looked at my back sight and found that by some accident it had got
raised and that I had the 200-yards sight up. On rectifying this,
another shot quickly put the wounded animal out of pain.
Still my day's sport was not yet over. While rambling back through the
trees I caught sight of a graceful-looking antelope in the distance,
and on cautiously approaching closer saw that it was an impala. My
stalk was crowned with success, the beautiful animal being bagged
without much trouble; and on reaching my prize I was delighted to find
that its horns were much above the average. On another occasion I was
fortunate enough to get a successful snapshot of an impala just after
it had been shot by a friend, and the photograph gives a very good idea
of what mine was like.
As it was now growing late, I made all haste back to where I had left
Mahina skinning the lion, but to my astonishment he was nowhere to be
seen. I fired several shots and shouted myself hoarse, all without
response; and the only conclusion I could come to was that he had
returned to the camp at the temporary bridge. I accordingly pushed on,
reaching home long after dark; and there I found Mahina safe and sound,
with the lion's skin already pegged out to dry, so that I could not
find it in my heart to give him the severe scolding he deserved for
having returned without me. Next morning I packed up my trophies and
returned to my work at railhead. On my way back I happened to meet one
of the other engineers, who called out, "Hallo! I hear you have got a
fine line."
My thoughts being full of my adventures of the day before, I answered:
"Yes, I did; but how on earth did you hear of it?"
"Oh!" he said, "Reynolds told me."
"Good heavens," I replied, "why, he left before I shot it."
"Shot?" he exclaimed, "whatever do you mean?"
"Didn't you say," I asked, "that you heard I had got a fine lion?"
"No, no," was his reply; "a fine line for the temporary bridge over the
river."
We both laughed heartily at the misunderstanding, and when he saw my
trophy, which was being carried by my man just behind me, he agreed
that it was quite fine enough to monopolise my thoughts and prevent me
from thinking of anything else.