The days have gone by when the Paramount Chiefs of the Barotse embarked
annually upon a large-scale Lechwe drive. I believe the last big hunt
took place in 1899. I, at any rate, have heard of no such happening
since.
It is just as well that these drives have come to an end. The African
natives' idea of sport does not altogether tally with that of the white
man; no sportsman likes to see animals slaughtered _en masse_.
In those days the Lechwe antelope were strictly preserved for the
pleasure of the Paramount Chief and his entourage. No native was
permitted to disturb them in their natural haunts--the wide, open
plains--and no man could kill one under pain of heavy penalty. The only
exception to this rule was when a few head strayed into the vicinity of
Lealni, the principal native village of the Barotse valley. Then the
people were allowed to hunt them with dogs, but not to shoot them.
The time chosen for these drives was after the rains had ceased to fall,
but while the Zambesi had still more water to carry off than its banks
could contain. The overflow was such that for a space the Barotse
Valley became a vast lake, varying in depth from a few inches to a dozen
feet.
The same may be said with equal truth of the Luena river, an important
tributary which, flowing from the East, made its junction with the
Zambesi not far from Lealni. It was in the Luena basin that the drives
took place.
For two months before the time of hunting preparations for the drive
began. Those long, heavy casting assegais, peculiar, I believe, to that
part of Africa, were cleaned and sharpened. Narrow hunting canoes were
collected, repaired and caulked. Four foot long pikes, sharpened at one
end--which was hardened by burning--with a stout blade fixed in the
other, were prepared in great numbers by the Batotela, a slave tribe
cunning in the manufacture of iron. The blades of these pikes were short
and flat and had the rounded point of an oyster-knife.
I was invited by the Chief to be present at the drive in 1899, and I
went.
It took two days to reach the hunting ground. We travelled in
shallow-draught, dug-out canoes. The first night we slept in elaborate
grass shelters prepared for us beforehand.
Next morning we resumed our journey at daylight. The Chief went first in
a very small and narrow canoe. He was accompanied by one man only. They
stood up in the canoe and punted with long, red-wood poles. All European
clothes had been discarded by the natives. The Chief wore a woollen
nightcap and a long, white shirt. Round his waist, but under his shirt,
he had a highly-coloured, fringed tablecloth. His legs and feet were
bare; so, too, were his arms to the elbow.
My canoe started immediately after that of the Chief, but I did not
retain that position long. It was more comfortable and, therefore, much
heavier and slower. It carried a crew of seven.
I suppose there must have been several thousand canoe loads of men. Two
of the Chief's wives accompanied the party. All etiquette was abandoned.
It became a race to follow the Chief, and although the waterway was
several miles wide, collisions were frequent. Everyone was
good-humoured, including one of the Chief's wives, whose canoe was
capsized in the scurry. She was rescued amid much laughter and joking,
in which she joined.
_En route_ we passed many canoes loaded down to the gunwale with pikes.
To these everyone gave a wide berth for fear of swamping them, for the
pikes were necessary to the sport.
In the afternoon of the second day we arrived at the spot selected, or,
to be more precise, at a large camping ground within easy reach of it.
Here we found even more elaborate grass huts ready for us. The Chief
gave me a hut quite near to his own, a compliment which I did not
appreciate at its intended value, because his band played and women sang
throughout the night and robbed me of all sleep.
The moment we arrived the Chief started off in his fast canoe to inspect
the ground over which the Lechwe were to be driven next day. On his
return he told me that the place had been well chosen and that the
country was alive with Lechwe. He also said he had found a high ant-hill
for me to stand upon and watch the drive.
At daylight we set out again and reached my ant-hill in about an hour.
The Chief took me to the top of it, pointed out the direction from
which the antelope would come, and explained the plans for the day's
sport.
Looking through my field-glasses I saw two faint lines which, beginning
more than a mile away in the open plain, converged, forming a funnel.
The narrow end of the funnel terminated within a quarter of a mile from
my ant-heap and in a line with it.
The faint lines were really thin strips of dry palmleaf tape, which
shone white in the bright sunlight. Every few yards a bight was taken
round a bunch of tall, growing grass, which lent support to it and gave
the impression that a one-strand fence or a barrier of some sort had
been erected.
The Chief referred to the two thin lines as walls, and assured me that
the antelope, if properly driven, would not break through them.
He then drew my attention to the apparent opening at the narrow end of
the funnel, and asked me if I saw anything to prevent the Lechwe from
escaping in that direction.
I said I could see no bar. He replied that the Lechwe couldn't either,
so, when pressed, would dash for the opening.
"It is then that the sport will begin," he added.
At this I looked more carefully and saw innumerable pikes had been
driven into the ground with their iron points sloping forward towards
the wire end of the funnel. The grass had been carefully rearranged.
This, then, was the general plan: to drive the Lechwe into the funnel,
down it, and on to the pikes at the narrow end.
In reply to my questions, he said that many thousands of beaters, drawn
from the slave tribes, had been wading through the swamps for two days
collecting small herds of antelope and driving them slowly forward
towards the mouth of the funnel.
He drew a diagram with his stick on the side of the ant-heap to show how
the beaters were disposed. He had adopted the well-known African method
of envelopment--the crescent, with the horns well forward. The men who
formed the horns had already reached the extremities of the funnel and
were passing slowly down outside the line. The antelope, he told me,
were contained in the arc of men coming forward.
As yet I could see no antelope, nor could I see the men who formed the
arc; they were still too far away.
In the meantime, all the men who had come in small hunting canoes had
taken their places outside, but close to, the two thin lines or walls.
The moment they reached their stations they sat down and were lost to
view in the long grass. The Chief explained that these men remained
hidden until the Lechwe had passed them, when their business was to
stand up and frighten the antelope forward with shouts and
gesticulations. Should any Lechwe attempt to break through the sides of
the funnel, the canoemen had to drive them back or assegai them.